Stuart from motosmartphones.com just made a quick report about what happened today in London, namely coming from the UIQ shareholders, Sony Ericsson and Motorola.
And how can we classify what happened??? In a word: it was PATHETIC!
Sony Ericsson declared UIQ dead, like AAS put it, by saying “UIQ didn’t attract the operator, manufacturer or consumer interest needed to stop it failing” Say what??? How about how you (SE) completely blew it by not supporting your smartphones and users, not making hardware updates, not making what was needed to realize UIQ´s imense potential???
Motorola, on other hand, didn´t say anything relevant…like always, since they became an UIQ shareholder.
This my friends, explains why UIQ´s destiny couldn´t be any other. When you get DUMB shareholders, with no decent strategy whatsoever this is what happens.
All we can do now has users is to give them the answer they deserve.
27 Comments Received
October 22nd, 2008 @2:27 am
Really sucks from Se to have missed achieving a great potential with UIQ. If they had at least done what they were supposed to be doing, UIQ definitely would not be in this sorry state. IMO, I think SE is just looking for a scapegoat to blame for their own mistakes. What the point of releasing a product if they company is not willing to back it up with regular updates and decent customer service???
October 22nd, 2008 @2:38 am
ok ares we know you are angry! but “ti guve” doesnt mean anything!
October 22nd, 2008 @2:43 am
this is what i told you sometimes ago.when the owners dont do anything to improve the UIQ what can we consumers do?writing them e-mail like we did before and didn’t get any kond of answer?
i was (and am) sure that SE wants the uiq to be dead.
October 22nd, 2008 @2:46 am
Kind! =))
October 22nd, 2008 @3:11 am
I’m just hoping that someone’ll port Android to the (now deprecated) UIQ devices…
October 22nd, 2008 @3:16 am
paker i was in a hurry
darkfox, curreny uiq device are not so bad, with the hacks, gdesk, opera 9.5
its the future that is sad
October 22nd, 2008 @3:37 am
It reminds me “something is about to surface from the labs…” …
October 22nd, 2008 @3:55 am
What is se going to use now?
Windows mobil? lol It’s realy ugly!
:S
October 22nd, 2008 @5:07 am
Interestingly enough, Opera’s stand on the Smartphone Show was using quite a few UIQ handsets to show off Opera Mobile 9.50
Didn’t look at all dead to me.
By the way, based on what one of the Opera guys told me, they will be selling Opera Mobile 9.5 directly to the consumer once it’s out of beta.
October 22nd, 2008 @6:59 am
I believe SE and the share holders have put the objectives TOO HIGH !
I even imagine they believed after 2 years UIQ3 could have a bigger market share than Nokia S60!
From that point of view, UIQ3 was a major failure.
- The first nail in the coffin was the decision on moving to UIQ 3, with ZERO retro-compatibility with existing UIQ 2.1 applications.
They forced the developers (and user base) to reinvest from scratch, and that was a seriously bad move, as many jumped out the wagon.
- The second nail was Symbian-Shitty-Signed.
- And the final nail, was the P990, a phone seriously underpowered on RAM.
It’s The End of the World As We Know it…
(and I Feel Fine)
October 22nd, 2008 @7:50 am
I don’t know what you all expected, but this is just old news, did we need even more confirmation? No.
We need to stop being angry and just look forward. UIQ is dead, we knew it, let’s just leave it at that.
Who’s to blame? Well, does it really matter?, the end result won’t change if we do find out.
I think we should now focus on Symbian as a whole, and why not also in Android. I hope that Symbian is not just S60 (or newer versions) as it seems it would be, but a real conglomeration of all systems, UIQ included.
I’m still happy with my P1 and hope to be at least for 6 months more, it does everything I want it to do and very well, and now with Opera Mobile 9.5 inside, it feels even better.
Just my two cents. Cheers.
October 22nd, 2008 @8:15 am
I reckon that Sony Ericsson and Moto just needed to release more god damned UIQ devices! Nokia have heaps of S60-based devices out, whereas Sony Ericsson and Motorolla barely released any!
If they wanted to penetrate the market with UIQ they should’ve put the platform on more of their phones!
October 22nd, 2008 @8:44 am
So much for the rumored FW update…guess it’ll remain a pipe dream. Any ui is better than a dead one. I share your bluster, ares.
October 22nd, 2008 @3:20 pm
I don’t believe that SE will be so much into Symbian anymore.
Symbian is owned by Nokia, and SE started long time cooperation with Windows..
October 22nd, 2008 @3:44 pm
SE strategy looks like it’s suffering from bipolar syndrome. They canned Paris and now photos are being leaked which may suggest a [rather inopportune] revival. Say one thing, turn your back and do another — take their touting Opera 9.5 on UIQ handsets at the show. What’s that about? I’m ranting, but this dead-or-alive game’s got me tired out. Gossip, rumors and SE’s renowned indifference to their UIQ users are what we’ve been getting (and they dare say lack of customer interest??). Now, there’s Touchflo 3D which doesn’t make WinMo look that bad anymore, yes?
October 22nd, 2008 @6:01 pm
Symbian Smartphone Show:
“symbian foundation products from sony Ericsson in second half of 2009. These will be S60 (compatible)”
October 22nd, 2008 @6:54 pm
lets see what happens
October 22nd, 2008 @7:44 pm
The fact that UIQ is becoming a dead platform isn’t really what annoys me, what annoys me is the fact that the UIQ labs are being shut down and that the new Symbian will be based of S60. Of all the variants of the Symbian OS, UIQ was by far the best interface. Sure it may be a little laggy, but that’s simply because SE put old ~200MHz ARM processors in instead of the 400-600MHz ones we’re seeing in smartphones these days.
For mechanical input, yes, S60 was good. But for touchscreen devices (which a lot of smartphone users want) UIQ was phenomenal, and some of those concepts on the UIQ.com showroom made me so annoyed. Imagine multitouch with Symbian..
I hope that Nokia get their act together with the Symbian foundation and take on the UIQ developers to work on the interface. Like even if it remains S60 for non-touchscreen devices and something more pretty is done for touchscreens.. But argh! [headdesk]
October 22nd, 2008 @8:43 pm
ares
You mean in the long term we will see……
October 22nd, 2008 @10:29 pm
I’ve sent an e-mail to UIQ after SE announced that the platform is dead, asking about updates for older phones and what’s about to surface from the labs.
They’ve answered pretty fast. I’m sharing two small parts of their answer:
“we’re well aware of the strong community behind UIQ. It’s one of the factors that have made it such a fun product to work with, and a lot of staff tend to be fairly regular visitors to many of the sites you mention as well as others.”
^^It was great to read this. I hope they could continue their superb work in the future. Btw, I’ve mentioned this site as well.
“As for future plans, it’s too early to state anything publicly yet. When something surfaces from the labs, we’ll make sure we make big enough noises about it though.”
^^I can’t wait, but I don’t think it’ll happen before 2009, Q2..
October 22nd, 2008 @10:58 pm
nomad84, thanks for the input!!!! i wonder what they will do…if only UIQ code was released and truly Open Source…imagine the possibilities
October 24th, 2008 @5:33 am
is there anyone here to use his/her phone more than 3 years??
it will take 2 or 3 years to see a good stable new S/F phones, so till that time enjoy your UIQ phone then go for new technology and have fun
October 28th, 2008 @11:29 pm
“DUMB shareholders, with no decent strategy”
It’s not the responsibility of the shareholders to prepare a strategy.
October 29th, 2008 @12:20 am
UIQ has TWO shareholders, with 50% each, so they DO define its strategy
At same time, the specific strategies of both SE and and Moto also influenced UIQ´s path (to death)
October 29th, 2008 @12:34 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder
“Although directors and officers of a company are bound by fiduciary duties to act in the best interest of the shareholders, the shareholders themselves normally do not have such duties towards each other.”
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_governance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management
In this sense SE and MOTO have responsibilities, but not as shareholders.
October 29th, 2008 @12:57 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder
“Although directors and officers of a company are bound by fiduciary duties to act in the best interest of the shareholders, the shareholders themselves normally do not have such duties towards each other.”
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_governance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management
In this sense SE and MOTO have responsibilities, but not as shareholders.
October 29th, 2008 @6:37 pm
SE and Moto, has majority shareholders, nominate the managing board. So, they have resposabilities.
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