Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told investors Tuesday that the world’s number-one handset maker remains committed to the open-source Symbian and Maemo operating systems as the main platforms for smartphones, advanced handsets, and web tablets. Among other things, Kallasvuo said Nokia intends to drive user-experience improvements in 2010 by taking the Symbian user interface to a new level.
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As an operating system, Symbian has reach and flexibility like no other platform, and we have measures in place to push smartphones down to new price points globally while growing margins, Kallasvuo said. I see great opportunity for Nokia to capture new growth in our industry by creating what we expect to be the world’s biggest platform for services on the mobile.
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No Quick Fix
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However, Nokia must do more if its expects to boost its smartphone market share in the year ahead, said Roberta Cozza, a principal analyst at Gartner. They need more attractive and iconic devices at the high end of the smartphone market and, in addition, a strong application and services offering around their smartphones, Cozza said.
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Nokia also needs to execute well and quickly on its Ovi Internet services strategy, which the Gartner analyst said they are doing. But this will take some time and they will be exposed to competition from other ecosystems like Android or Apple, Cozza observed.
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She said Symbian will be pushed more into Nokia’s mid-tier portfolio, while Maemo will be focused on the high-end smartphone portfolio where Nokia faces the strongest competition. The smartphone market has never been more competitive, and even established handset vendors are being challenged to maintain or expand their positions, Cozza said.
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Symbian’s S60 user interface and touch-input implementation is weak compared to Apple and Android, and it will take until the end of 2010 to see some major rework on the Symbian UI…