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Sony Ericsson Takes Control Of Symbian Interface |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Wednesday, 08 November 2006 |
Mobile phone manufacturer, Sony Ericsson has announced it
intends to buy the user interface to the wildly successful Symbian operating
system through the acquisition of Swedish software company UIQ Technology.
UIQ, developer of the interface is a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Symbian, maker of the Symbian smartphone operating system used by many of
the world's largest phone manufacturers including Nokia.
Symbian (and therefore UIQ) is jointly owned by a number of
mobile phone makers. The largest shareholding in held by Nokia with almost 50
per cent of the company.
But where Nokia uses the Series 60 interface, Sony Ericsson
is a licensee of UIQ interface and has been working closely with the company on
UIQ version 3.0, which is included in Sony Ericsson's P990 smartphone, M600
messaging phone and W950 Walkman phone.
If the rumoured (no financial details were disclosed) US$66
million acquisition goes ahead, Sony Ericsson has said it will continue to
operate UIQ as a separate entity and will licence the platform to competing manufacturers
on fair and equal terms.
But by bringing the team in-house, Sony Ericsson will
be far more at liberty to push future development in its preferred direction
which may offend or concern some licensees enough to hasten their adoption of
Linux-based platforms for future handsets.
"UIQ offers excellent technical flexibility enabling us to
provide compelling features such as push email, internet browsing, end user
personalization, and enhanced music applications" explains Mats Lindoff, Chief
Technology Officer at Sony Ericsson.
"By acquiring UIQ Technology we will further invest and
exploit the full potential of UIQ on Symbian OS for phone vendors, mobile
operators, developers and consumers."
"We welcome this decision by Sony Ericsson to purchase UIQ
Technology as it will give us the additional investment needed to compete in
the rapidly expanding software market for advanced phones," said Johan
Sandberg, Chief Executive Officer, UIQ Technology.
"This announcement is a positive development as it will
strengthen the capabilities and services available for phones based on UIQ and
Symbian OS whilst allowing us to focus on the core product development of
Symbian OS for the mass market. We look forward to continuing to work closely
with Sony Ericsson and UIQ on future phone projects," said Nigel Clifford,
Chief Executive Officer, Symbian.
www.sonyericsson.com
http://www.symbian.com/
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