Symbian says on track to win mobile market share:
LONDON, Nov 6 (Reuters) - UK-based consortium Symbian said on Monday it was on track to dominate the global market for mobile computing software, despite losing some executives and seeing its own partners launch projects with its rivals.
Chief Executive Colly Myers told a news conference he was happy with Symbian's growth and was aiming for profit by 2002.
``We've never said we want to be the only operating system in the market but we do say we want the biggest market share,'' he said. ``We expect the lion's share.''
Symbian groups founder Psion (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: PON.L) with mobile phone makers Ericsson , Japan's Matsushita , Motorola (NYSE:MOT - news), Nokia , Philips and Sony .
It aims to dominate the market for software for mobile computing devices from smartphones to wireless organisers, but faces competition from Palm (NasdaqNM:PALM - news), Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) -- and from separate members of the consortium itself.
In September, Motorola said it was developing a ``smartphone'' with Palm, the world's largest maker of palmtop computers, but pledged itself to Symbian at the same time.
Earlier, Ericsson said it was developing a mobile device with Microsoft, but pledged its continued commitment to Symbian.
``The partners are all still working with Symbian even if they are also doing other things,'' Myers told a Symbian developers' conference in London on Monday.
``Symbian is the centre of this market and is the key (software) platform.''
He said staff numbers had grown to 720 from 150 in 1998 when the company was formed, with handheld computer maker Psion as the main shareholder, and that it was working with 35,000 third-party software developers, from just 1,200 a year ago.
Some key staff left Symbian recently but Myers appointed a new finance chief, Thomas Chambers, and marketing vice-president Mark Edwards to bolster the team last week.
Chambers will oversee Symbian's flotation -- but said this would not be until there was a mass market for Symbian products, which is not expected for a year or more, and then only when equity market conditions were right.
There has been press speculation that Symbian might be looking for a new chief executive to replace Myers, whose background is in technology, and fight to win the minds of U.S. software programmers on whose acceptance its success may hinge.
But Myers indicated he wanted to stay on for a while yet.
``I have been here a long time, and I intend to be here to see this through and see us into the mass market,'' he said. |
