Linked by Liam Proven on Wed 10th Jan 2007 16:42 UTC
Symbian recently announced that its OS has powered 100 million phones. That's not bad - it's a lot of licences - but then, mobile phones shift around a billion units a year now. But a phone with Symbian isn't any old phone. It's a smartphone. 
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Member since:
2006-01-06
Even if it manages to compete against other smartphones, the fact of the matter is that the market for smartphones is really just a niche. And it's no wonder: $499 is a lot of money to pay for a phone. Apple is counting on people who would otherwise be thinking about buying a separate iPod and phone to purchase the iPhone as a unification device. Since the device isn't available publicly, it's tough to tell how much value it adds over separate iPod and phone devices. It has been my experience that so-called "convergence devices" tend to be lesser cousins of the devices that they sought to replace; that is, apprentices of many devices and masters of none. Apple does have a good track record on industrial design; however, Apple isn't immune to the realities of hardware tradeoffs. Economies of scale can only be stretched so far. Time will tell, though. I wouldn't bet against Apple's success, but "success" miht be pretty underwhelming if the reach is relatively small, compared to the larger market for phones.