Onward Symbian Soldiers! Software System Marches Into Battle
Hi Jim,
Looks like our conversation of yesterday is part of a groundswell of interest. Here's something from theStreet.com on the Symbionese Liberation Army:
thestreet.com
By Nick Watson
Senior European Correspondent
8/21/00 6:30 PM ET
LONDON -- Symbian is continuing its seemingly inexorable
progress toward establishing its operating software as the
standard for next-generation wireless devices. If it
succeeds, there will be many beneficiaries.
On Friday, Symbian -- a venture between Psion, Nokia
(NOK:NYSE ADR - news), Motorola (MOT:NYSE ADR -
news), Ericsson (ERICY:Nasdaq ADR - news) and
Matsushita (MC:NYSE ADR - news) that is designing
next-generation mobile phones based on Psion's EPOC
operating system -- announced that Sanyo would join
Philips Electronics (PHG:NYSE ADR - news) and Sony
(SNE:NYSE ADR - news) as licensees of Symbian's
software.
And TSC has learned from industry sources that Symbian is
set to announce another two licensees before the year is
out. The identity of these new licensees is not yet known.
These developments build further optimism in the wake of
reports last month that the head of Microsoft's
(MSFT:Nasdaq - news) wireless operations, Harel Kodesh,
resigned earlier this year because of dissatisfaction with
the company's operating system. These developments
continue to fuel the belief that Symbian will manage to beat
out the competing systems of Windows CE and 3Com's
(COMS:Nasdaq - news) Palm OS.
And the Winner Is
Certainly Tsugufumi Matsuoka, Sanyo's general manager,
appears to believe so. "Symbian provides a unique mix of
expertise and technology, and has set the standard
software platform for next-generation mobile phones,"
Matsuoka said when making the licensing announcement.
Analysts are understandably less forthright, but many agree
with Matsuoka's sentiments. Ian Burgess, an analyst at
Credit Suisse First Boston, notes that the four wireless
partners in Symbian alone supply between 75% to 80% of
the world handset market. "Although we are reluctant to
simply assume that EPOC can become the de facto
industry standard, we still see this as the most likely
outcome," Burgess wrote in a recent research report.
Nainish Bapna, technology equity analyst at Nomura, sees
this deal with Sanyo as another important building block in
Symbian's attempt to dominate the market for
next-generation phones.
"Symbian is placing EPOC into different parts of the value
market -- Sanyo at the low end, Sony at the mid-to-high
end," Bapna says -- although, perhaps, Sanyo wouldn't
quite see it like that.
In line to benefit from Symbian's success are obviously the
founding fathers of the venture. Psion, the largest
shareholder, announced last month that it has agreed with
other members of the consortium to float Symbian, "subject
to good progress in the establishment of volume products
and to prevailing conditions in financial markets."
And aside from the founders, others will benefit from a
Symbian victory, notably the industry that has grown up
around the system.
A Symbiotic Relationship
One such company is Digital Information Architects. Digia,
as it's commonly known, is one of the many emerging
companies that are building software and applications to
run on Symbian phones.
Chosen recently as one of Time magazine's 50 hot
European technology companies, the 3-year-old company
designs end-user applications for mobile B2C and B2B
commerce solutions, especially in the spheres of travel,
entertainment and finance. For example, Digia provides the
software that would allow a user to download money onto
the SIM card inside the mobile phone in order to purchase
an airline ticket.
"Think of it as if Microsoft shipped windows only 60%
ready," Pekka Sivonen, the chairman of Digia, explained to
TSC. "Symbian is the core enabling technology and we
continue where Symbian leaves off."
Digia is currently seeking its second round of financing, but
already its major shareholders include such wireless
luminaries as Sonera (SNRA:Nasdaq ADR - news), the
Finnish telecommunications operator, which Orange and
France Telecom (FTE:NYSE ADR - news), among others,
are keen to acquire.
Sivonen admits Digia's fate is tied closely to that of
Symbian. But if the risk is great, then the rewards should be
just as sweet.
Symbian expects to achieve mass-volume production of the
phones in two years' time. With licensing agreements,
Symbian expects to sell 730 million devices by 2002, which
is five times the current PC Internet market. "At the peak,
Symbian will be selling 10 million handsets per week,"
says Sivonen.
Yet here's the rub: Such bold predictions about how many
handsets the venture expects to sell inevitably put huge
pressure on the manufacturers to deliver. The first wireless
device using Symbian's operating software -- the Ericsson
MC218 -- is already available, and Ericsson has said it will
have another EPOC-based product ready for shipment in
December, but the makers will have to make sure the
rollout continues apace.
And if anyone was in any doubt about how the market treats
delays, one need look no further than the 23% fall in the
share price of Nokia last month when the company said
third-quarter earnings per share would fall short of
expectations because of the "timing of new product
introductions [and] seasonality."
Nevertheless, Sivonen is confident not only that Symbian's
software will become the standard -- "Who else is there?" --
but that the handset makers and the software designers
like Digia can meet the market's expectations.
A whole industry hopes Sivonen's optimism is justified.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Looks like WAP is in for a fight.
Outside the ropes, Ray |
