Yesterdays news of the Nokia - Microsoft alliance around enterprise software and services has been generating a lot of interest. One of the interesting side stories is that Nokia's Symbian phones already have an outstanding Office compatible software suite, in the form of Quickoffice, which ships with every current Nokia Symbian phone. Quickoffice have released their own statement today noting that its Symbian business represents only a portion of its business and that it will ship on 200 million Nokia Symbian phones before Microsoft's product is even released.
Read on in the full article.
In terms of impact this is also worth considering:
It also worth remembering that the licensing fees per handset (when bundled) are very very low. It only works because of scale - i.e. you need to be on millions of devices to make money.
But this also means that to get comparative income you need to sell less 'full licenses'. In other words if you are not pre-bundled you need to sell direct to say 5% (or less) of the user base to get the same income as bundling. Currently that sort of market pentration is very hard to achieve (hence a certain amount of developer obsession with bundling)... but this may change in the next few years as people get use to the idea of phones having installable software (becoming more like computers)...
I don't know if Microsoft will take 18 months to market.
Because if they do they risk to throw it all to garbage when SF^4 appears and breaks compatibility due to new UI.
Also, if you say, no they are working to be ready for the SF^4 UI, then, yes, 18 months is the most logic choice, but is the new UI closed by now?
Yes could well be longer.
I imagine they will have to develop a touch and a non touch versions, given that they are targeting Eseries initially. Non touch will mean an AVKON version is necessary (Symbian^4 Orbit UI+Direct UI is currently touch only).
> Because if they do they risk to throw it all to garbage when SF^4 appears and breaks compatibility due to new UI.
Written by someone who clearly doesn't know how to develop software 😊
Switching to the new UI is not insignificant but it's not THAT big a deal for a competant developer.
On a separate note though, Microsoft have proven time after time that one thing they are not is competant software developers. I expect the first few releases of any MS software on Symbian to be of the usual Microsoft quality: buggy, bloated, slow, badly designed, inefficient, negatively affecting the rest of the software on the device. Win Mo has continually been a classic reminder of Microsoft's 'abilities' on the mobile platform.
From a technical standpoint at least, I don't think QuickOffice have anything to worry about for quite some time 😊
I seriously believe that Nokia should let us have the choice of choosing our office app. I rely a lot on my mobile for editing and reviewing my sales team's reports. I can't afford to have a crappy app. If I like Quickoffice I should have that.
But we are talking about a scenario 18 months away. Well, I don't know if I would still be on a Nokia till then. maybe Blackberry can come out with a 8MP, dual led variable aperture Bold like device 😉
Who wants Office Mobile when there's Quick Office? MSOM is practically worthless. Word and Excel are EXTREMELY basic, and OneNote is just a joke.
Hey, there's even a version of QuickOffice wor Windows Mobile! And I'm sure it sells very well because it runs rings around the freebie MSOM.
If would be nice if I could use the QuickOffice that I have already paid for. Unfortunately the phone I had it on broke, now I have a new phone QuickOffice want me to buy another license.
Will Microsoft change that sharp practice?
Hope Quickoffice don�t forget symbian after this announce.
I get an impression that all they saying is "Symbian" is not the only game in town. Iphone was even mentioned twice. Quickoffice was quite usefull to me during my palm/PDA days. I do hope they continue to offer an alternative even on Symbian.
ashu wrote:But we are talking about a scenario 18 months away. Well, I don't know if I would still be on a Nokia till then. maybe Blackberry can come out with a 8MP, dual led variable aperture Bold like device 😉
18 months from now, you want just a 8MP, dual led variable aperture device??? Shame :P
Wouldn't it be easier for Microsoft to buy QuickOffice?