Client, conflict and the battle for the OS
On the client side theres been a war raging between the Symbian alliance, comprising Psion, Nokia and Motorola among others, and Microsoft. Overall, this will probably turn out to be less important th
On the client side theres been a war raging between the Symbian alliance, comprising Psion, Nokia and Motorola among others, and Microsoft. Overall, this will probably turn out to be less important than it at first seems. In order to get things into perspective, just think about the total number of digital phone handsets in the world, then ask yourself how many of these are likely to include the computer-like functionality of a Psion or a Windows CE device.
The handset companies understand this, and know that they need to add data functionality to all of the handsets they ship, while at the same time keeping the price down. From their perspective, the Symbian-CE sector is just a small proportion of the market. It will obviously grow as people find more uses for connected communicator devices, but it wont be the main event for many years, if at all.
Although Microsoft has been trying hard to carve out a role for CE in the wireless market, it hasnt been successful so far. Its been involved in development deals with French manufacturer Sagem and Koreas Samsung to produce Web-enabled CE-based phones, and its also been piloting a service for businesses in conjunction with a telecommunications company. The objectives of the pilot are relatively modest, but make sense - client devices use a wireless connection to operate as mobile extensions of the corporate network, so workers can get to their Exchange mail and BackOffice services from anywhere. In areas like this, Microsoft can therefore leverage its strength in networking, provided of course that the customer companies are Microsoft shops.
On the client side, however, Microsoft has been hampered by the fact that CE isnt appropriate as a mobile phone OS, because it isnt real-time, and its computer-style pricing of licences provokes eye-rolling from the handset companies - theyre used to low footprint, ultra-low cost embedded and real-time software. This is where the Symbian alliance excels with its EPOC OS, generally deemed more appropriate and more suitably priced. It also made sense because via their investment in Symbian, Nokia and Ericsson had the opportunity to own and drive the software - with Microsoft theyd be licensed passengers.
Motorola was also a founder member
of the Symbian alliance and brought with
it the emotional baggage of its semiconductor division. EPOC was initially an ARM operating system, which wasnt an issue for Ericsson and Nokia, but was for Motorola. EPOC was, however, ported to Motorola hardware last year, making it more feasible for Motorola to go ahead with EPOC-based devices.
Regardless of support from the mobile industry and the fact that EPOC lends itself well to small footprint devices, early EPOC-based devices are likely to be more Psion-like than phone-like. Meanwhile, the various intersecting alliances the Symbian shareholders have struck since the company was founded make it clear that theyre taking the view that multiple platforms, rather than just the one big winner, will play in this space. Nokia, for example, has a deal with Palm to implement the PalmOS on top of EPOC, while Ericsson has one with Microsoft to ship Microsoft Mobile Explorer with its handsets.
This article appeared in the June, 2000 issue of PC Authority.
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