Four months after announcing they were acquiring UIQ, Sony Ericsson invited other phone vendors to become shareholders of the Symbian interface (press release), to ensure a strong alternative to the S60 platform for everybody and to improve its financial position. Software, telecom and IT consultant OVUM questions the need of this and suggests an alternative: opening its source. They point to several different advantages that make it sounds like a good advise, but probably so did the advise of opening to investors. There’s no “best” strategy, and we wish Sony Ericsson the best of luck with theirs. After all, by not open sourcing a tiny bit of code nor even basing it’s strategy on third party applications, we all know what Apple is going to achieve with the iPhone and succesive iPhone nano’s, micro’s, etc. Here are some extracts from the article:

It could be perceived that Sony Ericsson is trying to have its cake and eat it, by wanting the strategic advantage of owning its own smartphone platform but at the same time wanting other phone vendors to subsidise it. (…)

[Open sourcing] UIQ would also benefit from developments made by other phone vendors using the UIQ framework, lowering its operating costs. OEMs could then make use of these developments without sacrificing their own differentiation. A move to open source by UIQ would also put Nokia under pressure to re-evaluate S60 software licences and fees.

Read “UIQ: to open or to open source?”

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