Nokia won't demote Symbian, but Linux OSs rule in north America
Published: 19 November, 2009
READ MORE: North America | Nokia | ZTE | OS | eBook | Handset | Android | Linux | Symbian
Continued ...
At an event this week in London, the Maemo marketing team referred to the N900 as a "bridge device" between Linux and conventional smartphones, aimed at developers and hi-tech enthusiasts, but more mass market Maemo devices will follow over the coming years.
This somehow led bloggers to the leap that Symbian was on its way out, prompting an official statement from Nokia: "While it is our policy not to disclose details of our product roadmap, we'd like to explicitly communicate that we remain firmly committed to Symbian as our smartphone platform of choice. Any speculation on what our 2012 roadmap, including operating systems and product branding, are completely premature."
Like Nokia, device makers that have been excluded from the handset big time in one market or another are looking to leverage open source OSs, mainly Android, to make themselves more cost effective and more attractive to cellcos, with China's ZTE the latest to use the Google OS to climb up the handset tree and target major partnerships, including, reportedly, Verizon Wireless.
The Chinese firm has mainly sold phones in low cost categories, through white label and emerging market channels, but released its first midrange smartphones this year, gaining some Vodafone slots and taking a market lead in Portugal. Now it says such experiences are increasing its credibility in the premier smartphone territories and it claims to be in talks with a wide range of carriers round the globe, including Verizon, for its Android models.
Dale Ying, ZTE's managing director of handset business marketing, told Dow Jones that the company is in talks with Verizon, Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile International on smartphones. For dongles and mainstream cellphones, it is conducting tests and negotiations with all four of the top US mobile operators, he added.
"We hope to sell our smartphone to these operators next year," Ying said. "We see big potential in the smartphone market. We are targeting to ship more smartphones in the coming few years, which will help to improve our gross margin." He added that ZTE is targeting combined shipments of 60m handsets and datacards this year, up from 45m in 2008.
Pages: 1 | 2
COMMENTS
Carrier Broadband Performance: Africa & Middle East
Carriers are using mobile broadband as their weapon of choice in the fight against the commoditization of voice and falling ARPU. This...
Voice over LTE: Market Analysis and Forecasts
VoLTE offer unique advantages in lowering a carrier's voice infrastructure economics and promises to improve voice quality, device...
Satellite Phones: Will Dual Mode Help the Phoenix Rise from the Ashes?
Satellite phones have followed an arduous path since their much-hyped launch more than a decade ago. The hype was followed by an e...
