Sony would like to buy Symbian?

[quote="TANKERx"]
He is also quite rude about Nokia;

[quote="Sir howard Stringer"]
Nokia is focused on volume�selling as many cell phones as possible at a low price. But in my observation, I am not sure they know very clearly what the real opportunity is in the telephone business. We are talking about secure distribution of music on the phone.
[/quote]

[/quote]

TANKERx, thank you very much for this fascinating news item!

Currently Sony has Symbian in its bulky cell phones and Palm OS in its classy PDAs! This is madness! Sony really needs to do something with it and I reckon that it will simply dump Symbian because it is:
- too much controlled by Nokia (Nokia employs 10 times more Symbian programmers than Symbian company itself),
- Palm OS has bigger software library (over 10 000)

.... on one side Microsoft, on another Linux from Motorola, and now also Sony is thinking about using Palm OS in cell phones. Difficult times come for Symbian...

and when jpzr was poiting out to Nokia in its internal newsgroups that "lack of MP3 in 7650 is a big mistake" and such things then Nokia "experts" were laughing out jpzr that "nobody wants to listen to music on mobile phones..."....

he he he

:P

No thanks necessary old fella! Just doing my job.

I suspect that the success of the P800 will encourage SE to keep Symbian for at least another device. Software is pouring in and the support is just getting better and better. The reviews are glowing and users are free to install whatever software they want without having to hack its security system! Although there are bugs, they are minor and guess what, you can even make telephone calls on it!

Anyway, who'd want to do business with Microsoft!? The platform is pants and the company will stab you in the back as soon as say hello. That's why Sony isn't even considering Microsoft as a possible platform. Sony like sleek, efficient and sexy devices, so the idea of using a Windows based platform was soon thrown out of the.... ermmmmm..... window?

Also, Nokia doesn't control Symbian - that's another piece of Microsoft disinformation to divert attention from its own darkness, along with the other classic "Nokia own MMS", "Nokia control WAP" and "Nokia blew up the space shuttle" (did you know that the majority of people who worked on the Windows code weren't actually employed by Microsoft? Does that reduce Microsoft's control over that platform?).

:roll:

[quote="TANKERx"]
That's why Sony isn't even considering Microsoft as a possible platform. Sony like sleek, efficient and sexy devices, so the idea of using a Windows based platform was soon thrown out of the.... ermmmmm..... window?[/quote]

no, no no! the real reason is the fact that MS introduced X-Box and thus directly attacked one of biggest businesses of Sony: the Playstatio game consoles! Now Sony is angry at Microsoft because of X-Box!

[quote="TANKERx"]
Also, Nokia doesn't control Symbian [/quote]

listen TANKERx, I was living in Tampere in Finland where there are several thousand developers employed by Nokia and working exclusively on Symbian - I have seen it all. My theory that Symbian is a puppet controlled by Nokia stands... and if you claim something else then you simply don't know facts.

OMG! 😮 😮 😮

I read the full interview on the website posted here...

but.... 😮 I think Mr.Sony just smoked something HEAVY before releasing that interview 😃

[quote="Sir Howard Stringer"]
I really want to own either Symbian or Palm;I want to buy them. Three years ago the Palm was so simple, but it is getting better and better. My problem now is that as Palm licensee we have to pay them lots of money.[/quote]

I am not very good at finances so maybe someone could explain this: why it is a problem to pay money as licensee but will not be a problem to buy the whole company? I hope Sony is not paying much more money for licensee fees than the price of the whole Palm company. 😊 Or do they? :-?

On the other hand, no wonder that Sony start to be worried about Nokia and Symbian devices, even if they are not saying that directly; Symbian devices are becoming more and more popular, eventually replacing all those Sony devices like digital cameras and camcorders, portable audios, PDAs, etc.

I'd just like to add something to my original post.

It pointed to an article which stated that Microsoft refused to give any figures for sales of its SPV. However, looking around, I saw a page on PMN where Orange said that they had sold 40,000 SPV phones since October last year. Since only Orange sell this, my sums tell me that Microsoft probably sold around about 40,000 SPV units since last October (does that include returns from customers who wish they'd waited for a P800 or 3650?).

😃

North America is still very ignorant about Symbian. Most of their articles about Smartphones still only mention Palm and Microsoft OS's. I dont think that Sir Howard Stringer is much different. He did seem confused about Nokia's relationship with Symbian i.e. they are only part owners. He also did not aknowledge the fact they Sony is already a part owner due to its Sony Ericsson collaboration. He's probably more familiar with Palm because Sony already sell Palm based products in the states.

I think TANKERX is right the P800 is going to be big in the states and huge worldwide. I also think the Series 60 devices will do very well there, the 3650 is already getting good reviews.

Palm has just reported lower than expected figures, due to as they say 'poor market conditions' but I wonder how much of the market they are already loosing to Symbian and its smartphones. One thing is for sure the Smartphone market is expanding, can Palm survive? Handspring and its Treo range also look very much in danger. I expect the P800 will sell in much greater quantities than the Sony CLI� PDA's and will probably reduce their market. If this happens then Sir Howard Stringer may well change his mind.