There’s no secret in the fact that multiple mobile platforms drive operators crazy, due to obvious support costs. However, I was kinda surprised that AT&T is thinking to actually do something radical about as part of their “dramatic consolidation” of mobile platforms over the next few years.
Speaking at the Symbian Partner Event in San Francisco, AT&T’s director of next generation services, Roger Smith, said that in that sense Symbian is “a very credible and likely candidate” to become operating system of choice for AT&T.
It’s important to add here that he was talking about completely AT&T-branded smartphones, not devices like the iPhone that may use AT&T’s network.
However, I still have hard time envisioning AT&T or any other major operator for that matter without BlackBerrys and some HTC devices in their portfolio. Not to mention all the Android devices we’ll certainly see unveiled during next year. Is AT&T ready to dump such big portion of the smartphone market? Or all they want is simply to outsource support to the manufacturers? It’s hard to say at this stage, but it’s a good thing they’re thinking about the future, no matter how weird their ideas are. 😉
Check out the full article on Yahoo News (from PC World).