The Austrian branch of Hutchison(called 3, logo below) has provided me with data services for my Nokia N71 and my laptop ever since TamsS60 was founded…and has served me reliably in Sweden and England at no extra cost(!!!) due to their 3 like home service.
Anyways, good luck and ill fortune had me bump into Christian Haspl, commercial manager for the above mentioned company. He gladly answered a few questions on platforms, application sales, virii and 3G network operation:
Dear Mr. Haspl, could you please tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m the commercial development manager for Hutchison Austria - we run the a 3g-only network called 3 since 2003. By the end of the year 2008, we plan to provide 3G coverage to 90% of the Austrian population!
How much coverage do you have in Austria as of now? How do you implement 2.5G support, and why can’t 2.5G devices be used on 3?
We have built up our own 3G network in Austria covering 50% of the population. Additionally, we have a national roaming agreement with one of the leading providers in Austria. Our partner provides the 2.5G coverage, and reaches approx 98% of the population.
Which platforms do you offer on your devices?
If I understand you correctly, platforms means operating systems. We mainly do Series 60 3ed - and additionally offer Windows Mobile via Palm’s Treo 750 and a variety of phones with J2ME support for mobile gaming!
Which platforms do you sell the most?
If open platforms are concerned, Series 60 3ed definitely takes the lead. However, if all phones are concerned, proprietary platforms offering J2ME definitely take the lead.
Proprietary platforms have recently lost market share to open systems. Do you think that this trend will continue, or will proprietary RTOS’s still be around in a few years?
We have recently seen Series 60 on cheaper devices like Nokia’s 6120. However, I think that RTOS’s will be along for a very long time - at least in low-end handsets. They are much cheaper to implement and maintain. I predict that there will still be a nice percentage of devices running custom IOS’s in the low and mid-end segment in 5 years.
Coming back to open operating systems, which operating systems will dominate the market in a few years of time?
When businesses are concerned, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6 is in an excellent position due to its excellent Outlook compatibility. Series 60 also is very strong.
Linux has not materialized in Europe so far, Qualcomm’s Brew probably won’t dominate the European market either.
However, none of these operating systems will disappear completely. There are hundreds of device manufacturers…and each one bets on a different horse.
Garmin had huge issues with users installing ‘crap’ onto their devices. How does the situation look at your end?
The device manufacturer mostly handles support for us. However, we try to guide the customer in terms of what to install and what to avoid. In case of an app-induced borkup, we recommend customers to hard-reset their phones and reinstall needed applications.
How does 3 handle virii targetting mobile devices? Do you consider them a big issue?
For us, virii have not been as big an issue as they have been for others. However, we block the MMS forwarding of .sis files in order to prevent virii from spreading on our network.
Additionally, we offer links to various mobile AV solutions. This ensures that affected users can at least download a trial version to desinfect the phone…and decide about keeping the program later.
Do you feel that they are a significant threat?
No. I can recall 3 cases in the last 2 years…we recommend the same steps as outlined above for faulty applications…
Last but not least, does 3 act as an ESD itself? Do you sell applications developed by third parties?
We currently focus on mobile games in Austria. However, we work on expanding the portfolio to applications in more mature markets like Australia. This will eventually come to Austria too…I am thinking of approximately 2 years here…
Samsung’s smartphone department has always been a bit of an “oddball” to me, announcing Palm OS smartphones like the i530 that never drop(except to staff of the Athens Olympics…and to Theo Poon). Samsung recently started to do Series 60 phones, and had a nice booth at the Symbian Smartphone Show. Here are a few impressions:
Samsung booth
Samsung’s booth was rather classic - no crazy sportsmen like at the Motorola booth. However, there were loads of phones available for visitors to play around with at the five stands:
Samsung i400
Samsung advertises the i400 as “the world’s slimmest S60 slide-up:
The phone itself is a small device with a slide-out multitap keyboard - next to a Treo 680, the device doesn’t look that small any more:
Samsung didn’t give any real further specs:
Samsung i450
Samsung’s i450 is a S60-powered phone targeted at audiophiles:
It is similar to the i400, however, sliding the screen downwards exposes an ipod-like control wheel. The phone has a 3′5inch headphone jack and uses Bang&Olufsen technology to improve audio quality:
Here is a video showing the Samsung i450 in action:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4772567466219330357&hl=en
Samsung i520
The i520 was also shown at the booth - here are a few images of this business phone:
Of all Samsung phones shown, the i520 seems to be the smallest to me:
Samsung i550
The i550 seems to be Samsung’s “professional” S60 smartphone, offering GPS, HSDPA, a large QVGA screen and a 3.2MP camera:
Unfortunately, Samsung stuck to a smallish multitap keyboard - a feature that will reduce usability significantly(IMHO):
Samsung gives a tiny bit of extra specs here:
Here is a video of the Samsung i550 in action:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=27052534879065674&hl=en
Samsung i560
The Samsung i560 is very similar to the i550 specs-wise(except for the lack of GPS) - Samsung positions it as a “sleek smartphone”:
Compared to a Treo 680, the actual size of the unit becomes visible - not at all sleek…
Here, Samsung gives the following specs:
Overall, I can confirm that all four Samsung phones exist and are alive and kicking - but I have no idea when they will finally hit the market…
Nokia has released the third model in its ever-famous N series of internet tablets - the successor to the N770 and N800 is called - surprise, surprise - N810:
Among the most notable new features is an integrated GPS receiver, an integrated QWERTY keyboard(pictured above) and the new OS2008…which will be made available for the N800 eventually. Developer support for maemo(==OS2008) is handled via Forum Nokia from now on.
Other than that, little has been changed in regards to the N800. One of the memory card slots was replaced by 2GB of internal memory…ah, and the USB port now supports USB 2 OTG.
Further reading:
Press release
Stats table
Maemo info for developers
For most, Motorola’s booth at the Symbian Smartphone show has just been a place to look at all kinds of stuntmen. However, due to an insider tip, we were made aware of a Motorola concept phone being on-site. The phone is a kick-slide, runs UIQ without touchscreen and has a 3.2MP camera:
Here are a few more pictures of Motorola folks having the device in their hands:
This device is said to be the successor to the Z8; the main feature that was highlighted at the show was its “video slideshow” capability. This essentially is a bit of software that allows you to stitch together movies, text and images into a custom presentation; and save the presentation as a video.
As of now, getting pictures of the box is impossible officially - these images were shot using 5x zoom from approx 10 metes away. Motorola folks refused to give any information about the device…
While a few of the keynotes are currently being uploaded to Google Video for your viewing pleasure(extremely interesting), here are a few first impressions from the Symbian Smartphone Show in London:
Immediately after entering the show, Nokia has a little “kiosk” giving a away images, themes, sounds and evaluation versions of various programs to visitors who have an S60-powered phone:
Motorola has a pretty impressive booth with stuntmen and breakdancing - more on that soon:
John Wiley is offering 25% off all Symbian books to attendants:
Of course, Samsung is there too - more on them in a jiffy or two:
Please stay tuned - detailed looks at some of the booths are coming soon!
Arriving in London Stanstead 1500 should usually be enough to make it to a meeting beginning at 1900 - but thanks to a London Underground screwup and an unnamed hotel borking up even more, I made it there just in time for the prize giveaways.
At first, valuable prizes were given out as the winner’s names were drawn - one of the surprise gifts turned out to be one of the rare few Sendo X devices still in existence. Here are a few photographs of the lucky winner, the box and the Sendo X itself:
After that, the situation became fun - various items were thrown into the “mass”:
Nokia’s E90 made the round - quite a few tricks were shared among users. Impressively, in real life, the machine is much smaller than it looks on the photographs:
Of course, the pub meet gave loads of opportunities for interesting interviews(coming soon). And with that, I log off for today - see you at the Smartphone Roadshow tomorrow!