The FT is reporting that the (part Vodafone and Orange-owned) Savaje is at
the centre of a plan for a consortium of ALL Europe's major operators to
have common OS. Savaje make a java-based phone OS that can have the entire
UI and some functionality replaced OTA or by changing the SIM.
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1079420444817
The idea is that VOD, Orange, T-Mobile, TIM and TEM (and others) gang up
on the vendors and get them to install this common platform. After that,
consumers won't argue about whether Nokia or Samsung have a better
interface, but Vodafone or mmO2.
<smug> I wrote a note back in 2001 saying this was going to happen. I even
talked about it in a job interview yesterday :-0 </smug>
This does rather answer the question as to why no operators have bought
stakes in Symbian - it's starting to look like an irrelevance. Regardless
of whether this particular venture suceeds, does anyone think the market
for Symbian/MS Smartphone combined will be any bigger than the PDA market?
How many consumers actually care whether their phone OS is 'open'?
-bge
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Benedict Evans
www.ben-evans.com
Received on Tue Apr 20 11:32:04 2004