Vodafone specific S60 now available
Published by Rafe Blandford at 13:11 UTC, February 19th 2007
S60 and Vodafone last week announced the release of the first Vodafone specific software package for S60 to all S60 licensees. The customised version includes Vodafone specific applications, services and branding. The first two handsets that will receive this software are the Nokia N95 and the Samsung SGH-i520. S60 and Vodafone first announced their collaboration a year ago at 3GSM in 2006.
The SGH-i520, first shown at Symbian's smartphone show in October, is an HSDPA multimedia slider. Samsung has also indicated that it is developing further S60 phones.
"Starting with i520, we will introduce further enhanced line-up based on S60 with Samsung's differentiated multimedia features," said Chul-hwan Lee, Senior Vice President of Mobile R&D Team, Samsung Electronics.
Samsung has announced a number of S60 devices over the last four years, but they have generally only been released into limited markets. The i520 looks to buck that trend and will likely be available in a number of Vodafone countries in Europe in the next quarter.
Vodafone is the first among a number of operators to work with S60 on an operator customised version of the platform. Orange's container program announced last autumn takes a similar approach and is scheduled to be completed in the summer. Similarly Telefonica, T-Mobile and TIM have announced similar agreements with S60.
The benefit to all these operators is two fold. Firstly such collaboration reduced the time to market for new devices as the customised software is 'ready-to-go' and secondly it reduces development costs. These savings are over and above those achieved by using a common software platform. The agreements represent a way of increasing the efficiency of using a common software platform.
Categories: Software, Hardware, Industry
Platforms: General, S60 3rd Edition
News Discussion
sanyci
Yeah!
All I want is restricted smartphone by Vodafone! :icon13:
All I want is restricted smartphone by Vodafone! :icon13:
moylan
i agree with sanyci. i bought an e61 and while it's a great phone vodafone is preventing the updated firmware from been used on it. i will probably buy the new e61i in the next few months. i will never buy a vodafone branded phone again! their loss.
ajck
Yes, so far operator branding has generally reduced handset functionality or increased operator control (I'm thinking of the various controversies with US based operators too here), or has seriously impacted handset performance (e.g. Orange's notorious branding on UK phones).
If operator branding purely provides benefits to the consumer then fair enough, but people are right to initially be very, very sceptical. The unfortunate fact is most ordinary consumers don't browse mobile forums etc and thus aren't aware of what operator branding might have done to their handsets.
If operator branding purely provides benefits to the consumer then fair enough, but people are right to initially be very, very sceptical. The unfortunate fact is most ordinary consumers don't browse mobile forums etc and thus aren't aware of what operator branding might have done to their handsets.
Unregistered
I want this theme for my N80, thanks.
Unregistered
I hate thatīs Vodafone doing with the fucking mobiles phones, it installs icons and advertisment things in them, and itīs horrible, I really hate this. Itīs good that you can erase all this installing the firmware from Nokia again...