Simon Judge of Mobile Phone Development wrote an interesting post on the subject. If we turn our heads off of the SysOpen Digia’s 48″ tall Symbian S60 mobile phone, no Symbian OS licensee makes phones for industrial usage, such as logistics. At the last year’s Symbian Smartphone Show, Palm OS units were used for tracking people.
In 2006, maker of the rugged industrial phones Psion Teklogix earned a total of £190 million. Other rugged phone manufacturer Symbol Technologies had an annual revenue of 1.7 Billion USD, and was acquired by Motorola last year. One wonders why Nokia and Sony Ericsson don’t go for this market. It may be a niche, but other than that – Nokia shoots for all other markets.
Is it the question of software? Developing for the other platforms is certainly easier, but Nokia certainly has a capacity to develop its own solutions. On the other hand, maybe Motorola with its recent return to the UIQ world will push some industrial Symbian devices. Or it’s easier to go with the other platforms? What do you think?