

Sony Ericsson abandons Symbian for Android and WP7 - gspyrou
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-devices/2010/09/25/sony-ericsson-abandons-symbian-for-android-and-wp7-40090267/

======
auxbuss
Symbian is dead [0]. It has been for a while. And Nokia will be too unless it
adopts a new strategy very quickly. The figures from the article make this
crystal clear: "Symbian's global market share has gone from 51 percent in the
second quarter of 2009 to 41 percent in the same period of 2010". It's equally
clear that it is Android that has hastened its demise.

It am still astonished when I remember Nokia buying (the rest of) Symbian in
June 2008. This seemed a bizarre waste of money. And so it proved. (The
purchase of Trolltech was earlier, but surprising nonetheless.) Perhaps if
they had done so years earlier, and open sourced it, then things might have
been different.

My opinion on the failure of Symbian was the failure to enagage developers.
That, and the most tortuous development environment and deployemnt process
that I have ever witnessed. Perhaps this could have been fixed, given time,
starting earlier, but corporate institutions historically don't behave in ways
to allow this. Regardless, it was much to late by the spending sprees of 2008.

Nokia should shunt Symbina into the siding now and adopt Android immediately.
It should get back to making great phones.

[0] It has its place in some phones, arguably, but how long would you choose
to continue to develop and support it when there is no long term need.

~~~
blub
More nonsense from the people that can't bother with studying the subject even
a bit before speaking. You seem to be unaware of the developments with Nokia
and Symbian for the past one or two years.

They are making an impressive effort to engage developers and they have made
the development much more simpler and straightforward. People that have been
developing for Android/iPhone have told me that the Qt SDK is competitive with
those other tools when it comes to ease of development and speed of
development. See: [http://gigaom.com/2010/09/15/whats-it-like-to-develop-
apps-f...](http://gigaom.com/2010/09/15/whats-it-like-to-develop-apps-for-
nokia-phones/)

As for Nokia switching to Android, see this:
[http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/24/editorial-nokia-isnt-
buil...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/24/editorial-nokia-isnt-building-an-
android-or-windows-phone-7-de/)

~~~
krig
Impressive efforts can still come to nothing, and so far the numbers aren't
favorable. I got and started developing for the N900 when it came out, because
I absolutely support the effort of truly being open source that Nokia is
betting on.

It's just not working out so far. There are no users, the platform is
immature, the N900 is not a good phone for users or developers, and most
importantly: the Ovi Store is terrible. I released one piece of open source
software and gave up on the platform after that experience.

Absolutely, anything can happen and Nokia do still have massive market share.
I just don't see how they can catch up to Android and iOS at this point,
massive effort or not.

~~~
blub
From what I've seen with the N8 prototypes, it looks, feels better than
Symbian 5th and it's faster too. Some people have been using the N8 more than
myself and told me that they are happy with them. Still, anything can happen
:)

N900 was a cool project, but they didn't take it all the way to a commercial
product IMO. It registered poorer sales than Symbian and it's always a bit
behind when it comes to services & software support. A hacker-friendly and
truly open source project, but I don't think that they wanted to invest too
much in it, they were probably testing the waters for MeeGo.

I'm curious, why do you say that the Ovi store is terrible?

~~~
krig
For one, the interface is a web site that isn't well-adapted to a mobile
screen, so getting to the store is cumbersome in itself.

Secondly, downloading an app after buying it is very slow and frustrating. It
involves adding a special APT repository with a unique key, and APT on the
device is unusably slow.

Third, actually publishing on the store is, as far as I can tell, practically
impossible unless you have a company and the name of that company is Rovio.

Third, they have no decent categories, no search functionality worth
mentioning, very little information about each app... the list goes on.

As a final nail in the coffin, the prices are much higher than in the Android
or iOS stores.

This is all from when I tried the store, needless to say I haven't felt any
desire to relive the experience again so things may have changed. I really
doubt they've fixed it though.

I don't know if you've used the store on a symbian device, the experience may
be better there, but my experience was indeed terrible on the N900.

I really don't see Nokia turning around and putting out a fantastic mobile OS
with a well-integrated experience that grabs customers, just like I have a
hard time seeing Microsoft managing it. Although, Microsoft do have Xbox Live
they could leverage.

~~~
blub
That does sound bad. On Symbian the store is a separate app that takes care of
everything for you. The install is done in the background and you can launch
the app directly from the store app.

Each app has up to three screenshots and description text, but this depends on
the publisheer.

Depending on when you wanted to publish, it might be better now because they
allow individual developers and you get free signing (for Symbian).

P.S: As a developer I'm happy that the prices are higher. :) 0.99 is
ridiculously cheap for software.

------
MalcUK
Sony Ericsson isn't _that_ heavily into Symbian anyway. Most of their phones
use a Java platform run on top of an OS - Symbian being one of the OSs, but
they also use proprietary OSs for the cheaper phones. It was Java that was
their focus.

They are just riding the Android and Win7 wave, while the competition isn't
too high, and in the long term, I predict they will focus on their own
platforms again. There's no other reason why Samasung would be developing Bada
for example.

~~~
stuaxo
They always seemed pretty halfhearted about symbian I never saw promotion in
the same way as their windows phones for instance.

------
pietrofmaggi
Is still Sony-Ericsson relevant on the smartphone market?

Android phones made by SE are still based on the 1.5, 1.6 version and even the
top of the noch, the Xperia X10, will not receive 2.1 till end of october...

It's sad but SE will not be missed by Symbian.

~~~
blub
I used to have one of their older Symbian phones and my impression was that
there was a lot of potential there but ultimately they couldn't pull it off.

This certainly isn't good news for Symbian, but I will hardly miss Sony
Ericsson: regardless of the OS, they somehow manage to screw up a perfectly
good smartphone.

------
auxbuss
It's a damning indictment of Symbian's failure that the HN crowd can't summon
the energy to debate it.

RIP Symbian. You served a purpose, but now it's time to die.

~~~
davidw
Ok, for the sake of argument: there are a ton of people in the world who
cannot afford a high end iPhone or even Android system. Are they not a viable
market? I'm not sure whether Symbian is the best OS there, either, to be
honest, but I do think that market bears consideration.

~~~
ugh
Don’t you think that really cheap Android phones will be a possibility in one
to two years? That seems plausible to me.

~~~
davidw
1 or 2 years? No. Lots of cheap (and some that aren't even all that cheap)
Nokia phones here in Italy still are still sold with S40, which is the step
below Symbian. And that's still in "the west". I don't know what phones are
like in places like India, but I assume that the low end is fairly low end...

~~~
ugh
I have no trouble at all imagining that 100€ (unsubsidized) Android phones
will be available soon. You can buy a 210€ (unsubsidized) phone from HTC right
now on Amazon. That’s not far off.

That’s not a sudden death – I’m pretty sure that you will be able to buy
Symbian phones in two years – but I think that there will be far less
dumbphones in the future.

~~~
davidw
Could be. Another thing to consider though, is what Google's going to target
with Android. Will they try and keep chasing high-end features, or will they
try and go for a more complete range? In other words, I can easily see getting
the 200 euro phone for 100 in a few years, but I can also see Android's
requirements growing to mean that it needs tomorrow's 200 euro phone to run...

Or not! Interesting stuff in any case.

------
drawkbox
It's all about developers baby [http://metrics.admob.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/04/appceler...](http://metrics.admob.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/04/appcelerator.jpg).

All the developers are over at iOS and Android. There are still some
developers left over in the RIM and Windows Phone camp.

I am an iOS dev, Android dev and Windows Phone dev spending my time in that
order. And most of that is on the one with the best market.

All the coup de tats in technology, an initial phase is stealing/attracting
developers. Then comes the apps that people want. Then come thy platform and
market. Rinse repeat. It is no longer just a phone strategy.

Symbian, Thy Game is Over. Nokia can maybe re-emerge as they still sell well,
but seriously setback now.

------
aberkowitz
They're not doing well, but they have 41% of the market share? Apple and
Google dream of having that kind of market share.

~~~
herval
If only market shares were fixed numbers. Myspace was doing very well before
facebook came along. How could a current (and falling, in nokia's case) market
share garantee anything about the future?

~~~
aberkowitz
There is absolutely no comparison between Nokia and Myspace. Nokia is coming
out with new things like S^3 and running app contests to encourage
development. Myspace failed because they did nothing when an unquestionably
superior product came out.

~~~
herval
I'll believe that when I see S^3 gaining any traction. Specially with everyone
else that uses Symbian jumping on Android's bandwagon...

------
dagw
So what will be their OS of choice for sub $150 phones with a keypad and
without a large touchscreen? Or will that category of phone simply disappear?

~~~
yason
Definitely.

I would bet a lot that the cheap (between $50-$150) phones few years from now
will be basic medium-size touchscreen phones running something like Android
and equipped with a bit older hardware, maybe a generation or two behind.

The cheapest Android phone I can find in my country is Samsung Galaxy 5, for
224€. And that's only two years down the Android lane. Two more years, and
we're close.

~~~
patrickaljord
Cheap Android phones are already here:

<http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/03/huawei-ideos-hands-on/>

"this thing is going to be launching for somewhere between $100 and $200
unsubsidized in Europe, Asia, and both North and Latin America. It's got 3G,
WiFi, mobile hotspot capability for up to eight devices, and was apparently
developed in direct partnership with Google, a sign that Mountain View is
serious about taking Android 2.2 across the entire price spectrum."

~~~
blub
I don't understand how it can be between 100 and 200. Why the large interval?

~~~
jackvalentine
Because of the large geographic spread of "Europe, Asia, and both North and
Latin America". These regions all price phones differently.

------
mads
Symbian is dead and so is Nokia..

