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CyberMedia News reports that Symbian Ltd. is now setting its sights beyond its traditional realm of high-end smart phones. As the article says, Symbian is changing tacks to target the mid-range “feature-phone market”.
Feature phones are phones, which lack the typical bells and whistles associated with smart phones, but instead carry specific features such as MMS, digital music, games and camera features.
Symbian made the first step in its mid-range plan in February this year, by slashing the licensing rates for its customers (mobile handset manufacturers) so that they could target lower cost device market segments and drive higher volumes of Symbian OS phones. Another move was to team up with Nokia and Freescale to build a 3G-reference design platform for the mid-tier market. Despite the strong thrust on mid-tier, they hasten to add that the company would not shift from its primary focus-smart phone segment.
Symbian is also banking on its Indian development center for software development. The company recently opened a new facility, which houses 230 employees (and growing) in Bangalore.
Besides Bangalore, the company has development centers in Cambridge and London in the UK.
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
