I'm not sure how to respond on this one - after the announcements from Apple, American Technology Research have downgraded their stock recommendation on Nokia from 'Buy' to 'Hold' because of the increasing competition, and they are awaiting a competitive response from Nokia. I suspect that response will be coming at some point next week.
Read on in the full article.
A few facts this analyst seems to ignore:
- Nokia's profits and sales mainly come from cheap handsets that cost nothing on contract and average $100 when bought unlocked.
- Even before the iPhone Nokia have had very little success in America, almost all their sales come from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Nokia's Middle East sales alone are bigger than their American sales.
- Apple's only dealing in very expensive handsets, mainly targetted at the US market.
Put all these facts together, and it's very difficult to see how Apple's announcement about a US smartphone could be seen as increasing competition for Nokia.
For an analyst to change a recommendation, the situation they're observing has to change. But what exactly has changed?
Nokia was already on the ropes in America, the iPhone doesn't change that.
Nokia was already getting most of its money from cheap phones, the iPhone isn't a cheap phone.
For those who think the iPhone is now cheap, the so-called "$199 iPhone" doesn't cost $199, because you still have to sign up for the expensive long term contract to use the phone at all. You can't even (legally) use it offline without signing the contract.
Add up the total cost and the price of the iPhone has barely changed, they've knocked a bit off the first installment, but you still have two years worth of payments to make after that.
Even charging $199 for the first payment is fairly expensive, many smartphones are $0 on their first payment.
Nokia will innovate with features such as a removable battery, a 5 meg camera and a fully open OS that anyone can develop software on.🙄
hrm, I think first u will see the small players dropping out, then samsung, LG and finally nokia and sony's market share dropping like mad. At which point they will switch to windowsmobile (sony has started).
few years from now only apple and windows mobile will still be around (smaller 3rd party will be blackberry). Truth is mate, most people buy Nokia for the phone, no the OS. I've worked for phone retail for 15 years. I can count the amount of people who ask for a symbian phone on 1 hand. Yet i get people asking for windows mobile OS phones weekly. Really, Nokia make great phones, they should focus on WM7 with a custom UI like HTC and Palm does. And custom Nokia only apps that give people a reason to buy their wm7 os over other wm7 phones. Nokia has some great apps like the fitness tracker and maps 2.0. True, there will allways be people who just what a fashion phone, but once Nokia (and other players) only start to focus on that, your not in the driving seat anymore and it's only a matter of time before they become irrelevant (hello moto? can u hear me? nup). The OS wars are over, time to wake up Nokia.
I think this just goes to prove that you should probably consider anything an analyst says in context and with your own opinion in mind.
Yes Nokia does face competition in the high end space, but I don't think there's anything new about this. In real terms companies like Samsung and Sony Ericsson will provide more competition in device terms with Google and Microsoft giving more competition in software and service terms. You can argue Apple is also a significant player here, though it yet to prove itself outside the US market.
You can argue Apple is also a significant player here
If we were just talking about smartphone sales in America then yes Apple is significant, but Nokia as a company gets almost all of its money from non-smart phones sold outside America.
How can they possibly be rivals under those circumstances?
I just cannot see how Apple and Nokia could be affecting each other's share price when they're mainly operating in different markets with different kinds of product.
hrm, I think first u will see the small players dropping out, then samsung, LG and finally nokia and sony's market share dropping like mad.
Except that's not happening at all.
Moto dropped market share significantly, and they were a huge player. At the same time, all their rivals increased their market shares significantly. There's no pattern at all.
few years from now only apple and windows mobile will still be around
Let's put this in perspective shall we:
Apple has sold something like 5 million phones which gives them a 0.5% market share, and they hope to increase it to 10 million a year which would give them a 1% market share. Even if they sold 100 million phones that would still only give them 10% of the market.
And something like the iPhone is never going to take over the world because most people buy cheap basic phones. It's too expensive, too fragile and too big (and I'd say the same about Nokia's higher end phones too).
It's the cheap end where market share is won and lost, because those are the kind of phones people actually buy.
Really, Nokia make great phones, they should focus on WM7 with a custom UI like HTC and Palm does
Nokia sell as many smartphones as all their rivals combined. What benefit would it bring them to suddenly switch to an OS used by much lower-selling companies like HTC or Palm?
I've worked for phone retail for 15 years. I can count the amount of people who ask for a symbian phone on 1 hand. Yet i get people asking for windows mobile OS phones weekly.
It's not about how many people ask for Symbian, it's about how many people BUY Symbian. Symbian phone sales are something like three times bigger than Windows Mobile phone sales.
Hardware manufacturers make their money from selling hardware, not from how many people are fans of its OS.
People generally don't buy phones for installing software on, they buy them for the features that come built in. That's why the iPhone got a lot of positive coverage even though you couldn't install any software at all on the first version. Some of us do of course install software, that's what sites like AAS are for, but we're very much in the minority.
In fact even on desktop computers you'll see the number of people installing software going down as more and more people use them purely for accessing online services like websites, VOIP, e-mail etc. The whole culture of installing software is gradually dying away, and the significance of the OS with it.
A phone OS isn't just there for users to install third party apps though, it's also to allow built-in apps to run, either from the manufacturer or from the phone network operator. In this regard Symbian is streets ahead of Windows Mobile.
True krisse. Thats why HTC focus the Touch and Diamon on Asia and europe. But, sorry guys (and im an old Nokia fan) the iPhone now comming to the rest of the world, it's going to be massive. Here in Aus Optus are having launch parties and taking $50 reservations (no dout vodafone is doing something the same as well). I've never heard of this happening for any other phone release, ever. It's going to be big.
And Nokia releasing a touchscreen S60 device almost seems an embarrassment. Nokia have allways been at the cutting edge, they have had a year to play with the iPhone and plan before the 3G release and what have they done? The n96 and n78? some same old e-series devices? sigh. Don't know why i care, not like i work for them or anything. It's just a shame thats all. They are making the same mistake Palm did with Palm OS. Dump s60 from the highend phones and focus on windows mobile, still make S60 phones, but focus on windows if they want to still be a around in the space a few years from now. Palm was diehard anti-MS, and even they are focusing on windows (Treo 850 looks nice).
Anyway, time i go scrounge up $50.
Some personal observations;
All mobile phones are migrating more and more towards smartphones. Thus simple lowbudgetphones will require a decent smart OS. Looking at the market there are Windows Mobile, OS-X (Mobile), Linux, Java OS, Symbian, Blackberry. At some time all lowend phones will be smart because it is the cheapest production option.
Current major OS'es based on salesfigures last year are RIM, OS-X and Symbian. Strangely/happily Windows Mobile is absent since smartphones with touchscreens are currently the fashion.
Symbian (excluding the by SE abadoned Symbian based UIQ) is the only OS not having touchinterface support. So yes, the stockmarket is watching wether or not Nokia will release a timely touchscreen based smartphone, to stay on top of the market. Yesterday's annouced iPhone 3G, lacked voice navigation software and a decent mobile camera. Which also means Nokia is a bit of the hook with a quick release of the touch interface.
Per now Nokia shares are going up again. Every one will be looking and comparing the S60 Touch interface with the iPhone, thus Nokia can not do hardware first and fix firmware later with S60 Touch. I expect Nokia to make their first S60 touch announcements end August. making the shares go up with a bang. Apple would have done a lot better to make the 3G iPhone a real hardware upgrade.
Currently the Nokia smartphone software add-ons and firmware give a better feature package than the iPhone but that will not last long. They need to outperform also in hardware and at least be equivalent in the finesse of the userinterface.
Hi again Krissie
->
Except that's not happening at all.
Moto dropped market share significantly, and they were a huge player. At the same time, all their rivals increased their market shares significantly. There's no pattern at all.
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Don't forget Palm, Siemens, that UK maker (forget the name). Anyway, I only think a year or two from now, there will be a clear pattern on what�s going on. I'm just saying, I�ll check back then and u can call me names if I�m wrong 😊
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Apple has sold something like 5 million phones which gives them a 0.5% market share, and they hope to increase it to 10 million a year which would give them a 1% market share. Even if they sold 100 million phones that would still only give them 10% of the market.
And something like the iPhone is never going to take over the world because most people buy cheap basic phones. It's too expensive, too fragile and too big (and I'd say the same about Nokia's higher end phones too).
It's the cheap end where market share is won and lost, because those are the kind of phones people actually buy.
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True mate, all I�m saying, if Nokia want to focus on fashion phone (cheap glitzy phones bought on mass) then fine, (but that wouldn't include eSeries and nSeries phones). Problem with that, your just selling cans of Coke. Nothing wrong with that, but with the new media, leaders can take charge and change the direction of the whole industry. Look at iTunes. From selling online music they have defined what an online music shop has to be, what an mp3 player is (they own the mp3 market by using software - lesson to be learnt there). And now they are using the industry they own and changing direction again into the mobile market. Heinz 2.0 😊
Anyway, I�m just venting. I just expected and wanted more from Nokia. I've using and selling Nokias for donkey�s years and have been watching them slowly grapple the new face of the PDA like a bar of wet soap.
Since nokia makes its living by selling the lower end phones, if the 6220 classic does come out for free on reasonable contracts, and assuming its also a reasonable price on PAYG, who on earth will have anything that can even offer a remote comparision?
I have to say though the iPhone's are starting to get tempting, the feature set is improving all the time. And the app store is a stroke of genius, no mucking about looking for apps, they are all in the same place, piracy becomes harder and developers get 70% of the sale price without having to muck about with credit card fees etc
And if you release as freeware there are no costs at all.
Gameswise Super Monkey Ball looks awesome and it looks like the iPhone will be everything N-Gage could (and should ) be. I can see a lot of the major games companies developing for the iPhone.
And yes the iPhone internet browser is great but..............
'You can't eat toast and surf the web on an iphone'
It's not about how many people ask for Symbian, it's about how many people BUY Symbian.
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me again.
Problem is mate, these people buying symbian phones aren't buying them because they are a symbian phone. What that means is, they will switch to something as soon as something new comes out. Enter the top selling iPod into the market (everyone knows an Apple iPod) and you have people moving off without a thought. The questions will be "does it play iTunes" which, the answer for all other makes will be "no".
The first rule of sales, never say "no".
This alone will have an effect on sales. And at the end of the day, will I be buying a Symbian phone that a million people buy (knowing no different) and me, picking around the internet trying to find 1/2 decent applications for my Nokia n81 or a shiny new iPhone with a mass of developer support behind it, with software that can be bought as easy as buy a song from the #1 music reseller in the world?
anyway, sorry to go on.
krisse wrote:
- Apple's only dealing in very expensive handsets, mainly targetted at the US market.
Maybe the analyst was incorrect as from what you guys have said that all the profits are in selling large volumes of low end phones. That said the new iPhone is pretty good, the price is better or at least comparable to the competition and so challenges the high end Nokia phones. It appears that the only area that Nokia are doing better is the camera. kudos to apple! hopefully this will spur Nokia on and get them to release something great - for me the next batch of Nokia high end phones isn't that exciting compared to my N82. I will probably get a new iPhone mainly because the new Nokia's aren't that exciting..
WinMo is never going to dominate... It's such a crap OS like the desktop counterpart which is getting worse aka Vista. So many stability issues... Can't make a call sometimes...
Get real. You've been in sales too long which has clouded your judgement with the day to day BS you give to customers.
Even WinMo users complain how frustrated they're getting and moving elsewhere.
I think the point people make about comparing at the high end is that today high phones are tomorrows mid-tier phones. i.e. Apple is helping set the conversation at the high end. (Though I do agree making sweeping generalisations and comparisons without taking into account a major part of the business is ridiculous). I think the media also is partly responsible for this - the shiny high end stuff gets the attention, but perhaps devices like the 6220 have the potential to shift the mass market more?
I think one of the things that is strange about Apple / iPhone is it receives a disproportionate amount of attention. There's been some other successful devices in its class (e.g. HTC Touch). And of course Nokia's Nseries. Yet they receive little attention despite being just as influential (i.e. the idea of converged devices for the consumer, arguably the most fundamental shift in mobile, has been largely driven by Nseries). I think it underlines the importance of Apple's brand creation and marketing.
However I think Apple may face problems in the longer term given its closed garden strategy (i.e. providing all the services in your digital footprint). Technical stuff will be an issue (e.g. the background thread stuff is quite telling in software terms) as will other bits of the value chain (its not just about devices - distribution, logistics etc become very important the larger you become).
krisse wrote:A few facts this analyst seems to ignore:- Nokia's profits and sales mainly come from cheap handsets that cost nothing on contract and average $100 when bought unlocked.
If Nokia is only making money on it's low-end portfolio, each analyst would argue that Nokia should dump it's high-end business, as it is being subsidized by Nokia low-end business.
- Even before the iPhone Nokia have had very little success in America, almost all their sales come from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Nokia's Middle East sales alone are bigger than their American sales.
Having not a lot of success in a market is in itself not a good thing. Having a competitor in that same market that has captured the imagination of that market is probably one of the worst things that can happen.
- Apple's only dealing in very expensive handsets, mainly targetted at the US market.
Apple is going after the European and Asian markets, which are Nokia's home markets. This will result in Nokia making less money in those markets, because of price cuts and/or increased marketing effort and/or diminishing market share.
I wouldn't call a USD 199 handset with contract expensive, certainly not comparing it to Nokia's offerings. The pricing certainly seems competitive.
Put all these facts together, and it's very difficult to see how Apple's announcement about a US smartphone could be seen as increasing competition for Nokia.For an analyst to change a recommendation, the situation they're observing has to change. But what exactly has changed?
Quite a lot actually. A year ago, a new contender has entered the market with a very strong brand and a device that has captured the imagination. That very same contender has improved it's product so much it is now capable of taking on Nokia in it's home markets. And what has Nokia done to counter this? Is it aggressively targetting the US market? Nope. Is it actively strenghtening its European and Asian markets. Nope. On the contrary, it isn't releasing any phone at all, it seems.
Nokia was already on the ropes in America, the iPhone doesn't change that.Nokia was already getting most of its money from cheap phones, the iPhone isn't a cheap phone.
Nokia is investing in it's high-end business. Software and services, Ovi. Apple is a formidable competitor here, with iTunes.
Nokia has bought Trolltech to create a platform, we think, because Nokia isn't exactly telling. Apple has a platform, OS X.
Nokia is now courting the Open Source community to develop free software for their platforms. Apple is courting all developers with a clear and reasonable revenue sharing model and an on-device shop based on the proven iTunes concept.
For those who think the iPhone is now cheap, the so-called "$199 iPhone" doesn't cost $199, because you still have to sign up for the expensive long term contract to use the phone at all. You can't even (legally) use it offline without signing the contract.Add up the total cost and the price of the iPhone has barely changed, they've knocked a bit off the first installment, but you still have two years worth of payments to make after that.
Even charging $199 for the first payment is fairly expensive, many smartphones are $0 on their first payment.
Pricing is very dependent on the country you are in now. With T-Mobile in Holland I can get a N95 8G for EUR 119 with a 2-year contract at EUR 35 a month. That's comparable to what the iPhone is going to cost.
One thing is clear: new iPhone DOES NOT DECREASE competition for Nokia. As such his recommendation is completely logical: "Wait until you hear what Nokia is up to next before you consider expanding your exposure to Nokia stock in your portfolio. But do hold on to the ones you have as their value is still going to hold and perhaps go up."
Absolutely nothing wrong in his recommedation in my view.
Don't care much about market research. Don't care much about which manufacturer/OS is in the lead (as long as M$ doesn't take over the smartphone world too of course). The more competition the better for the consumer - i.e. me. I just care about the technology and getting the best device for my use.
And I still don't find the iPhone attractive. My good old E90 still beats it feature-wise.
iPhone:
If these things were implemented/remedied it would certainly make me consider getting one.
But I have to say that the Communicator form-factor and features have always worked for me. I'm by no means saying they were/are perfect, but having tried most of the other smartphones (not only from Nokia, and not only Symbian based) I always find myself returning to the Nokia Communicator. Here's hoping the E90 successor won't disappoint me. 😊 Some people find the E90 too big. I don't. Partly because I'm used to PDA-phones, partly because I'm not a girl/woman nor an insecure, skinny teenager. :tongue:
Unregistered's comments in favour of Windows Mobile are laughable at best, and just go to reaffirm my opinion (and most people's these days) that you should never trust a retail phone salesman - most of them don't even begin to have a clue what they are talking about.
1.) Windows Mobile is SUCH a joke of a mobile operating system that it is universally derided by mobile experts the world over, and not in the slightest considered to be a serious competitor. Ever. Microsoft, true to form, have made Windows Mobile bloated, buggy, inefficient, badly designed, stupid, battery wasting. In short, a total mess that has to be shoe-horned into a mobile, and beaten around the head to make it work at all.
2.) Last stats I saw from a few months back gave WM a huge 😉 0.7% market share globally, of all phones (not just smart). So 99.3% are not using. Symbian was on over 10 times that amount, around 8%.
3.) Nokia are doing exactly the right thing - making the presence of Symbian on their phones LESS known and less obvious, and putting it on lower end handsets. This is great. It means punters aren't scared off by talk of "smartphones" when they say "I just want a phone". So they think they're getting "just a phone" and instead get a real power house of a phone, at a cheap price. Witness 6120 Classic (huge seller) or forthcoming 6220 Classic, and others.
4.) Symbian have stated multiple times they are aiming increasingly at the low end. Again, the right move. Will increase market share.
5.) iPhone 3G kind of isn't bad, despite several let downs (e.g. camera, offline mapping, stereo BT etc) but as Krisse points out total cost is still huge with a contract, and frankly sales will never match Nokia's or even be within a fraction. Nokia sell nearly 500 million handsets a year, many tens of millions of Symbian based phones (about 12 million N95's alone). iPhone has sold 6.6m worldwide total.
6.) This analyst is a bit of a chump who has just proven he doesn't know what he's talking about. Stupid analysts are two a penny in the mobile world.
7.) As Shakespeare might have written "A lovely touchscreen does not a world beating phone maketh". iPhone 3G's future "big success" needs to be seen in light of Nokia sales figures...
Alex
CEO
phonething.com
Assisted_GPS is what you want Rafe as supported by iPhone 3G. It's what was added to the N95 firmware to make location lock quicker (i.e less than 20 mins).
Nokia changed their strategy, the machinations of their first line reports meant that affordable reliable consumer electronics were no longer the flavor of the day, services are seen as the key.
The problem here is that the services that Nokia have their eye on require high end handsets, and while it's true that high end today is the low end of tomorrow in many technologies. Following this mantra by premature induction is dangerous.
Ovi is not a prominent brand name, this kind of fluffy service is not what people think of when they think nokia. iTunes is a big part of the ipod experience from the start and so through genius or luck (i suspect the later since they would have called it iMart if they knew how it would evolve), it will allow apple to own and control a valuable distribution channel - i.e real $$
The worst thing that Nokia can do is forget what made it all the money in the first place. low end is not sexy, but it's a big sloshy cash cow still.
In my opinion the iPhone is hype, hype and hype. It�s like the mobile phones has been invented by Apple. And the fans of the iPhone are buying the hype and talk about "how bad" other products are and so on.
I can understand the concept of iPhone but the hype is annoying. It has some interesting things in it�s GUI but function wise they have a long way to go. If they release a new model with better hardware, i.e an 800 x 480 pixels display, better camera and a fully configurable OS with a decent application support I will think about an iPhone. But today the E90 beats it hands down.
Another problem is the people who thinks other manufactorers must copy and release "iPhones" because products with hardware keys, touchscreens with stylus navigation and so on are "bad devices now when iPhone is here". The first thing one of the first devices with an open front (big display) was the swedish Spectronic TS2000 and the Neonode N1 was the first device with "multitouch UI". iPhone has a very similar concept to the Neonode N1.
The other solutions for navigation and so on works fine and I think the market needs different classes of devices, not just one: the Apple iPhone, Nokia iPhone, HTC iPhone, Samsung iPhone and so on.
I think Nokia will release the new S60v5 platform in many different devices during 2009 and it�s not because of the damn iPhone. It�s because the touch edition of S60 has been on it�s way some years with the beginnning in S90 released on Nokia 7700/7710.
For me the touch Communicator is the way to go, the hype surrounding the iPhone and the asking for a "Nokia iPhone" and so on gives a negative impact on the iPhone credibility for me. I don�t want a hyped device with functional limits. I want a good device with good hardware and software.
As far as the information I've been able to gather on the new iPhone 3G; it doesn't have a physical GPS receiver chip, just network based AGPS - similar to the one found in the old Motorola A92x' Symbian phones. And not only that, it seems that the iPhone 3G needs a Wi-Fi connection to actually get AGPS to work...
:con?
a few notes:
the bit I don't get is if the market share of symbian phones is so rosy, then why do symbian developers keep disappearing after a few years of trying and failing to actually make money?
this is AAS after all and the only area where symbian beats non-symbian phones is the extra software you can install on it. if you remove that, you get nothing bit a bigger and slower phone with a much higher price tag.
what amazes me is the fact that people buy an N95 and use it for nothing more then a 3210.
I would be really interested to see a comparison of how much symbian phone owners make full use of their phones compared to iPhone users. that is the real indicator of a good phone and not the sales figure.
as a high end USER I would prefer my device to work well and not sell well. There are a zillion Nokia phone models and one iPhone. the competition isn't real when it comes to sales figures. but show me customer satisfaction figures and we can start talking about who deserve to a downgrade.
Hi,
IMO the phone sales man is correct.
1. the HTC touch is fantastic - makes most Nokia phone look like c**p.
2. Met a non tech guy using the HTC Touch. They know what they are getting themselves into - they want mobile computing. As far as they are concerned s60 phones are just phones.
3. as I have always said, as an ordinary user, you can hardly tell the difference between the s40 and s60 phones - but you will know that a WinMo phone is powerful.
4. Difference between s40 and s60 phone? s40 has more features and s60 requires you to buy applications. Also s40 has lesser "convenient" features e.g. cut and paste or multiple moves or deletes compared to the s60. That's it. Beyond that it is Nokia that has been ripping us off.
5. Nokia ruined Symbian. And strangely the only company that remained true to the original smartphone vision is M$oft. WinMo at least has some semblance of mobile computing. None of the phones in the Nokia range has that (incl the E90, a pathetic attempt by Nokia to insult power users intelligence.)
6. Interesting how "feature" set is always mentioned when compared to the iPhone. You just dont get it. Steve Jobs doesn't bother with feature set but rather how may functions are used regularly...the anwer is that 80% of regular iPhone users (as opposed to geeks) regularly use 10 or more of the iPhone "features" - compared to how many by "ordinary" Nokia users?
7. Nokia has to pull its socks up because so far it has been a let down. They never believed in mobile computing as they came from a voice centric background. M$oft and Apple are coming from a computing background....and it shows.
8. Nokia has been spouting about mobile computing since 1999. Seems like Apple has once and for showed that Nokia just didnt have a clue. Not only does the iPhone download a web page faster than a N95, but it displays a web page we can all recognize as opposed to Nokia's truncated joke.
9. Want a better camera than the one in the iPhone, get a digicam.
10. Multitasking. Sigh so what? Half the time there is not enough ram in the Nokia to even multitask - why bother...
sovind, you just ruined your own argument.
9. Want a better camera than the one in the iPhone, get a digicam.
That for me, is making an excuse up for the iphone. There is so much call for a good camera in a phone, as many websites and opinions prove. You didnt even need to defend it, but you did. People like convergance devices. *I* like convergance devices. Theres blatently a market for it, hence why the N95 was so successful.
10. Multitasking. Sigh so what? Half the time there is not enough ram in the Nokia to even multitask - why bother...
The updated firmware in the classic makes it perfectly able to multitask. And the 8GB version has always been able to without any problem.
Obviously you have little enough expirence of the latest S60 devices to comment as you do.
6. Interesting how "feature" set is always mentioned when compared to the iPhone. You just dont get it. Steve Jobs doesn't bother with feature set but rather how may functions are used regularly...the anwer is that 80% of regular iPhone users (as opposed to geeks) regularly use 10 or more of the iPhone "features" - compared to how many by "ordinary" Nokia users?
I dont use MMS very often, but it does come in handy sometimes.
Just because I dont use a feature often, doesnt mean I dont want it left out. Video recording is another good example.
I dont discount the iphone because its apple, its because its usless to me.
1. Its overpriced, if the rumours about a 2 year contract are true.
2. Its missing lots of things I use, reguarly or rarely, MMS, copy and paste, etc etc.
And a few other things, mainly personal preferance, touch screens are too slow, and I like removable batteries.
The tariff prices in the UK for iPhone 3G are very good now
http://www.o2.co.uk/iphone/paymonthly
Very competitive (cheaper than Vodafone have quoted me for an N78 upgrade �150 handset, 18 month contract, �40 per month)
iPhone 3G will also available as a PAYG for �269
To the person harping on about people not asking for Symbian phones.
When I worked at Symbian it was a strategic decision to remain low key and let the handset manufaturer promote the OS as they felt. There were suggestions about having "Symbian Inside" but this was rejected.
By symbian remaining low key it means that manufaturer is the key and is thus why Nokia are still outselling the others. The phones are purchased for brand not OS. Microsoft have made the WinMo brand on a par if not higher than the brand of the phone manufaturer.
Only geeks care about Symbian/Microsoft/Linux OS' in thier phones. Apple is a totally different affair as it is the Apple/iPod brand selling the phones not the OS.
Ratkat wrote:The tariff prices in the UK for iPhone 3G are very good nowhttp://www.o2.co.uk/iphone/paymonthly
Very competitive (cheaper than Vodafone have quoted me for an N78 upgrade �150 handset, 18 month contract, �40 per month)
iPhone 3G will also available as a PAYG for �269
Thats not 2 years, and as you say, very reasonable.
Maybe, just maybe its value for money...
"1. the HTC touch is fantastic - makes most Nokia phone look like c**p."
LOL - thanks for making my day with the most unequivocal yet unbalanced, inarticulate and irrelevant thing I've heard in a long time 😊
I've seen the applications that are currently in development for the iPhone (WWDC '08) and I'm sold. Not to mention the iTunes distribution model, the mobile me service etc. To me, it simply blows away everything. I've used Symbian devices exclusively during the last 5 years, but now I switch.