How important is the OS in your smartphone? This has always been a strong discussion topic, as David Wood points out on the Symbian Foundation blog, but it's not the only issue around Operating Systems. Should we not be asking how important the perception of your OS is, to help drive the market? If that's the case, then Symbian OS and the Symbian Foundation need to make some hard business decisions in the next year to ensure the public know who they are.
Read on in the full article.
I don't want that Symbian heart logo anywhere on my mobile phone nor in the software. It's hideous logo
Operating Systems don't need to be noticed by consumers. What MS did was a play for their enterprise efforts (get the home user to notice and approve and therefore make it easier to deploy for the big money and longer-term enterprise market).
What Symbian needs to do is make sure that the OS and any associated services not only play as developer friendly, but also have the confidence of major enterprise clients behind them. They shouldnt be a me-too outfit, but they do need to make sure that what products they produce and endorse have a sense of working "lovingly" with the world around them.
To do this easily on the side of the consumer will speak easily to the side of the enterprise - keeping SF in the minds and wallets of those customers.
I wonder if having a yellow heart phone charm could work. (It could potentially be one of those where one side is some microfibre material that you can use to polish your phone.)
It could come in every box and there's a good chance people would choose to attach it to their phone (either because they think it's cute or simply because it's a practical screen wiper) but those that really don't like the logo and/or phone charms could choose not to use it.
Because of it's optional nature it may be easier to convince manufacturers to bundle it with S^phones rather than printing the logo on the device.
Having said that, I think the yellow heart recessed inside a clear plastic (glass?) dome could look quite cool (Similar to the way the SonyEricsson blob thingy appears on their phones) - especially if the surroundings are black or some other dark colour. Potentially the heart could be backlit as well (like the Apple logo on their laptops). I think that would actually look pretty neat.
Unfortunately, due to BOM costs, I suspect if it did ever appear on handsets it would just be printed on... *sigh*
I don't think there is a brand problem here. There is now a single flavor of Symbian OS and that flavor is called S60. Instead of using both the S60 and the Symbian OS brand, using the S60 brand is sufficient. It isn't perceived as Nokia-owned either so other manufacturers shouldn't have a problem here.
The point is Symbian does not share the same brand equity as probably a Windows, nor does it does not have the reputation of a Google which is omnipresent in the world wide web, Nor does it have the status symbol that an iPhone can bring.
I would be surprised (pleasantly though) if going forward Nokia manages to do just that�
For me Symbian in its new Avatar is more to do with Nokia doing a catching up game in the high end mobile space where it faces some serious competition. The Foundation is the right step forward but a logo in the near future is little far fetched.
Hi Ewan,
This is a big topic 😊
At roughly the same time you were writing your comments, I was penning a follow-up on the Symbian blog - posting entitled "Symbian as a consumer brand" (* - added URL http://blog.symbian.org/2009/04/21/symbian-as-a-consumer-brand/ - Steve)
I'm going to be reading the follow-ups with great interest!
// David Wood, Symbian Foundation
(*) I tried to include a URL here, but your new bulletin-board software tells me that I am "only allowed to post website or email links after you have made 10 posts or more".
there was a piece of news the other day about running Symbian on an atom based PC. may be it indicates something.
PCs are shrinking in size. it might not be to far in the future when it would be possible to have a fully working PC the size of a regular smart phone.
I wonder if that would bring all the options of PC operating systems to smart phones. may be even virtual machines, in which case one might be able to switch between operating systems, all uniformly accessing the same data in the cloud.
just a thought.
This is a huge issue in the US market. I don't know what Symbian's plans are for the US, but if they are going to make a dent in this market, they are going to have to rewrite the rules.
The same thing that happened with BetaMax and VHS will happen again. I really believe that S60 has the most potential of the OS's currently available, but unless Symbian/Nokia can come up with a way to tie it into peoples lives like Apple has done, it will be a mute point. JVC opened video rental stores to help promote their VHS format. I don't know what that kind of innovation looks like in today's market, but since Apple and Blackberry already have the jump on the App stores and tied-in music stores, Symbian/Nokia has got to reinvent the wheel in order to win in this market.
Granted, Symbian has much better footing in the rest of the world, but these other OS's seem to be gaining traction.
Is there any kudos attached to Symbian. The answer is no, not outside this small enclave of geeks. So why bother diluting the decent Nokia brand name.
To be honest, I think it really comes to how good we think the Symbian OS is. If Nokia truly believe that it is *the* best mobile operating system on the planet, then why not shout about it? Put the logo on the front and back! If it's not, then it's probably best to let the hardware sell the devices until such time that Symbian really is the best, should that time occur...
What is the 1st thing somebody do after putting the battery into a phone? They push the power button and watch the Nokia hand shake clip.
They should just add a short animate clip showing the device is powered by S60 or Symbian OS before the phone gets to the main menu.
I think that will keep consumer inform of what they are using and they will be more aware of the OS that meets their need.
I don't mind a logo on the phone but change the logo first, its hedious.
The vast amjority of people don't care about the OS, in fact neither do I. My priorities are a phones that does what I want, is reliable and can take knocks and is compact and portable. I don't really care about the details of how those are achieved. It could be Windows, linux or Symbian, don't bother me with those details, just give me the functionality.
A glowing Heart logo on a man's phone?! .. Cant see that happening in the near future.
Most guys & geeks will probably switch to a more mature looking device, rather be caught dead with a heart logo/lanyard/charm on their smartphones.
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Rafe