The Others: Where Android, Symbian & LiMo are

The title of this post is not meant in any way derogatory but with all the hype about the iPhone it is sometimes easy to forget that we are talking about a niche product that will probably remain a niche product (albeit a powerful and cool one!). In the rest of the world (feature phones aside), a few consortia are fighting for the open-source market, which is - let's face it - a considerably larger piece than the small premium segment served by Apple.

So, where were we? There is the LiMo Foundation, which is onto establishing a mobile Linux standard. There is the Symbian Foundation and there is Android, a Linux-based OS from the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. One by one then:

LiMo Foundation

LiMo boasts a membership based comprised of the Who's Who in mobile. Powerhouses from around the world like Vodafone, Orange,

Verizon Wireless, NTT DoCoMo, Telefonica, SFR, TIM and SK Telecom, Samsung, NEC, LG, Panasonic, Huawei, Motorola, and ZTE (and quite a few more) are all in there. LiMo has released an SDK a while ago. Now though, they decided that enough is enough and that the world should know that their OS was actually making headway. In 2009, there will be new handsets based on LiMo's s

tandards released by Orange, Telefonica, Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom and Verizon Wireless. Now, that's a statement. Non-phone devices are in the works, they say...

There are already more than 20 LiMo phones out there (without very many people having realized it). They include such mundane devices like Motorola's U9, ROKR EM30, ROKR Z6 and ROKR E8 as well as the RAZR2. Panasonic and NEC pboth produced a whole raft of devices for NTT DoCoMo. See here for a list of available phones.

Symbian

Symbian of course is coming from a differen

t mould: having been (co-)owned by Nokia for, like, ever, there are already over 200m devices running on its OS. After going open-source, they are working on consolidating the sister formats S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) now into one. Membership-wise, they're not doing badly either: they target to having more than 100 members by year-end. Membership with them is only $1,500 p.a. It remains to be seen to what extent they will extend their handset footprint beyond Nokia though. Little has been heard so far...

Android

Both foundations felt compelled to state their cause, also in response to Eric Schmidt's continued mantra that 2009 will be very, very strong for Android. The Open Handset Alliance had gone off to a well-publicized start with the T-Mobile G1. They recently announced that it had sold 1m devices (regarding which some people pointed out that Apple shipped as many iPhones on the first weekend), and are now gearing up more devices for launch (Vodafone got its hands on the HTC Magic). Samsung, LG, HTC and Sony Ericsson have all announced Android devices this year, and the first Samsung (I7500) has just been officially confirmed.

Multiple Membership

Wait a minute? Samsung? Weren't they part of the LiMo foundation? Well, yes, and that is part of the problem: a lot of the big players have their fingers in all the pies (and why should they not?). This is favouring Apple since they are a single organization producing hardware and software. It could also be argued that it is favouring Android because Google throws so much marketing and PR behind it. However, maybe not. The big OEMs and the big carriers all work according to their own agenda. And this might very well be a very different one to Eric Schmidt's: to an OEM, production cost, stability and versatility without impacting standardization are key. To a carrier, a lot will (also) ride on the ability to customize the handset so as to give it a distinct branded feel. Less PR from someone like Google makes it easier to them to focus on their own brand.

So: rock-solid, clean code, transparent and clear SDKs, no hidden hooks will mean that a lot of the feature phones that create the vast majority of handset sales (even if sales of the "classic" J2ME ones had been declining in 2008 when compared to smartphones) will quite possibly see a larger and larger move towards the open platforms. It makes it cheaper to produce and, with Apple having given the world the app store idea, content should flow in sooner or later. They "only" need to keep the standards, well, standard!

The iPhone is of course looming large, and it is the one device that has shown the old school of the telco world how 21-st-century marketing can impact market perception and sales. They have also all realized that this might actually be a very good thing, hence the eager discussions many are purported to be having on getting their hands on the next generation. However, last time I looked, the streets were not full of Porsche Boxsters either. Quite a few Hyundais, Fiats, Peugeots, BMWs, Volvos, well, you get it...

Adobe Flash Opens Screens

Flash maker Adobe isn't tiring on bringing out news these days: this time it announced the "Open Screen Project", in which it is partnering with a plethora of mobile industry giants, namely ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Intel, LG, Marvell, Motorola, Nokia (see also here re Microsoft's Flash competitor Silverlight), NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson (see also their initiative to marry J2ME and Flash here), Toshiba and Verizon Wireless as well as major media players such as the BBC, MTV Networks and NBC Universal.

It said "the project is dedicated to driving rich Internet experiences across televisions, personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics. Adobe said it would open access to Flash technology, accelerating the deployment of content and rich Internet applications (RIAs)." This will include:

• Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
• Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
• Publishing the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
• Removing licensing fees – making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

Adobe says its Flash Player reaches over 98% of Internet-enabled PCs and more than 500m mobile devices today. It now expects more than 1bn handsets to ship with Flash technology by the end of 2009 (this means a year faster than previously forecasted). Flash technology is used to deliver vector graphics, text, interactivity and application logic, video and sound over the Internet. Currently, more than 75% of broadcasters who stream video on the Web use Flash technology (YouTube will be a big contributor to that number).

Following my many posts on mobile Flash (see e.g. here and here), this now looks like a real assault on the medium. Given that Flash reduces developer cost (less porting because of vector-based graphics) means it is a likely boost to the content industry: more and richer content at lower cost. Could this be it?

R.I.P. European i-mode: one more down

Following last year's drop of i-mode by O2 UK and Telstra (see here), Germany's third-largest carrier E-Plus is now dropping the service, too. I saw the cause last year in the ways of the data charges (through which NTT DoCoMo makes most of its money for the service) and noted that this wasn't too compelling for users and this seems to hold true, in particular in view of the move towards flat-rate data plans introduced in recent months by a lot of carriers, which will continue in the coming months, too.

Outside Bouygues in France and, seemingly, O2 in Ireland, it never took off over here. Rotten subscriber numbers in spite of huge marketing budgets. R.I.P. Nuff' said.

Linux Mobile pouts its LiPS

Now there's been a lot of talk about Linux Mobile recently, with all that Google's or rather the Open Handset Alliance's Android stuff floating around (see e.g. here and here), and the good folks who aim to push this operaing system are quite naturally busy to ride the wave of excitement and attention over this (and are always very keen to stress that Android is a welcome addition to the forces rather than a bad competitor). LiPS is one of two consortia besides Android (the other being the LiMo Foundation) who intend to further the footprint of Linux in mobile, too.

And, just in time for Christmas, LiPS (whose members include Orange, France Telecom, MontaVista and Access) now has released its first specification. Well, to be honest, it is only the second half of what was already released in June but, hey, now it is complete: it provides APIs for telephony, messaging, calendar, instant messaging and presence functions, as well as - unspecified - "new user interface components." LiPS stresses that it wants to allow developers to develop applications that will work on all phones under the standard, and from that point of view the voice API should be particularly interesting (voice-controlled games? Ah!).

Unlike its "competitor" (compatriot might be the better word) however, there have been no news on any handsets developed under that specification yet. The LiMo Foundation scored first-line honours here with NTT DoCoMo recently announcing its impressively spec'ed P905i (by Panasonic; using the Viera brand - see here for similar use of brands) and N905i (by NEC) handsets released under the LiMo Foundation specs (see for a showcase of the FOMA 905i series here and here).

A lot of action happening, and good stuff, too! Now, bundle your resources, folks, and conquer!

Motorola loves UIQ

US handset maker Motorola acquired half the shares in UIQ, the smartphone software unit, from Sony Ericsson. Sony Ericsson had bought UIQ from handset OS maker Symbian last year. UIQ is essentially a graphic interface adding components to the Symbian OS. Symbian in turn is 47.9% owned by Nokia. Under UIQ, native programming can be made in C++ although the software does support the - in the mobile games space - ubiquitous J2ME standard. Motorola's new flagship Z8 (nicknamed "MotoRzr" as in "riser") is running on it already. The battle of the OS giants begins...

It is an interesting move since Moto has been the most active OEM for the use of Linux Mobile: it has released a whole range of phones for the open source OS featuring the penguin. It is also one of the founding fathers of the LiMo Foundation, an initiative it embarked on together with industry heavyweights NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone, Samsung, NEC and Panasonic (and which was recently joined by LG, McAfee, Broadcom, Ericsson and others). Now, I understand that Linux and C++ work together but must admit that my knowledge is more than limited here. It is in any event noteworthy that Motorola goes with a UI based on Symbian rather than straight-forward Linux. Motorola was quick to state that UIQ would only be "one of the actions to support [a] strategy" adding more investment in multimedia product segments.

With hundreds of millions in development cost at stake, it is probably too early to tell but it certainly is a new twist in the quest to uproot Nokia's top position with the Symbian s60 platform. So, what's next?

i-mode dropped by O2 UK & Telstra

Today's a busy day, and here comes the next piece: we read that O2 UK will stop selling i-mode handsets from the end of this month, so that the service it licensed from NTT DoCoMo will probably soon come to an end. Elsewhere was reported that Australia's Telstra will close the service in December of this year.

O2 UK spent £10m in marketing which yielded a mere 260,000 users over the past 2 years. Telstra is believed to have gathered less than 60,000 followers of the service. Not impressive and only the last examples of i-mode's failures outside of Japan (and some pockets in Europe, namely with Bouygues in France and O2 in Ireland).

The woes continue as some other markets either pulled the service already or did not even launch it: following the disappointment in the UK and presumably closely monitoring the struggle of E-Plus O2 did not launch it in Germany. MTS Russia generated a mere $150,000 per month from it. In India, the launch on Hutchison Essar was pulled "in part" because Vodafone invested in the company. Exact numbers are hard to come by but as one does not hear booming statements of its overwhelming success, conclusions can probably be drawn...

What is it then that made i-mode such a success in Japan and such a failure nearly elsewhere? Is it the change of the mobile landscape with more and more operators abolishing usage-driven data charges, the general increase in bandwidth on phones which allows users to access more rich content more easily (this used to be an advantage of i-mode), or the lack of support from handset vendors (often cited)? It probably is a bit of everything really but quite possibly the old and overcome model of making money by letting the meter run: users outside of Japan are neither used to this anymore nor do they welcome it. And rightly so: the value is not in the time I spend browsing. The value is in a specific application, service, game, etc. Being charged for this would appear to be eminently sensible: I buy a product and I pay for it. Paying to use the pavement to go to the shop is less convincing as a concept.

Update: The International Tribune has an i-mode article here. It basically confirms the above but offers some additional viewpoints and quotes and such...