Asus Eee PC 901 and 1000 Dates Soft-Announced

This isn't first-hand word from Asus, but Liliputing is reporting that a member of their readership got an extremely confident US release date from the Asus pre-sales department for both the Atom-based Eee PC 901 and 1000. And that date was July 8th-one day later than MSI's Wind. We'll let you know if we hear anything official from Asus on the matter. [liliputing]

Nokia's Symbian Deal Rewrites The Smartphone Rules

Symbian, the most popular smartphone mobile operating system worldwide, is going open source, part of a struggle between hardware and software companies for influence in a critical industry segment. The move is sure to affect businesses exploring ways to push more applications onto smartphones, and it could influence the role of open source software generally.

Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, is driving the plan. Already a 48% stakeholder in Symbian Ltd., Nokia is buying the company's remaining shares for $410 million and pledges to make Symbian open source under the royalty-free Eclipse Public License. Symbian's development--including continued twice-a-year new releases--will be guided by a foundation supported by an alliance of mobile device manufacturers, chipmakers, and carriers.

For businesses, the move raises several critical issues. On the upside, it's possible companies will wind up with cheaper phones--the Symbian OS today costs manufacturers about $4, while Microsoft charges about $15 for Windows Mobile per phone. A free mobile OS could ramp up price competition. On the downside, IT departments could face a tougher battle trying to contain the number of smartphone platforms they're asked to support, if open source leads to more variations of the Symbian OS.

Perhaps more important to businesses is whether an open source Symbian leads to more applications and faster innovation for smartphones, at a time when companies are exploring whether and how to push more tasks through ever-more-powerful smartphones. By 2010, when Symbian goes open source, the evolving mobile development community will gain deeper access to Symbian and, in theory, be able to create more compelling applications.

"What it really means is that we're at an early stage of a full-scale war for becoming the next development platform for mobile devices," says Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, which guides Linux development by employing key developers and setting standards.

The goal of Nokia and its allies is clear. "We want to make this the most widely used software platform on the planet," says John Forsyth, Symbian's VP for strategy. The new alliance, called the Symbian Foundation, includes Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, AT&T, and Vodafone. Those companies likely won't give up their use or support of other mobile operating systems such as Windows Mobile, but Nokia's move puts new pressures on Symbian's competitors.

Smartphones are the industry's plum growth market, and Symbian commanded 67% of the worldwide market share last year, according to research firm Canalys. However, Symbian has less than 10% share in the United States, where Research In Motion, Microsoft, and now Apple set the agenda. It also has just 6% of the market for lower-end phones. Among the major U.S. carriers, only AT&T even offers any Symbian devices, while Sprint, Verizon, and Alltel can't even offer them since theirs aren't GSM networks.

In banding together, handset makers are making it clear that they don't want a repeat of the PC industry handing over their destiny to American software makers, where Microsoft and recently Google, with its plans for an open source Android operating system, look formidable. In addition, given broad membership that encompasses chipmakers as well as handset producers, the alliance could solve thorny standards issues that often result in incompatibilities between networks and devices.

From : http://www.informationweek.com/

Sony Ericsson issues alert as inflation takes its toll of sales

Sony Ericsson yesterday said it would miss its finanical targets this quarter as rising food and fuel prices in emerging markets ate into sales of mobile phones.

In a second profit warning in just over three months, the company, which is jointly owned by Sweden's Ericsson and Japan's Sony, said that it would now only break even in its second quarter.

In the first three months of this year the group saw profits drop 48 per cent as the combined effect of a saturated Western European market and a tighter grasp on purse strings hit demand.

Now it appears that high growth markets such as China and India, which have been adding as many as seven million mobile subscribers a month, are coming off the boil.

Many emerging markets have been hit by high inflation, with mobile users more inclined to buy basics and stay with their existing phones.

Carolina Milanesi, a mobile devices analyst for Gartner, said: "At the beginning of the year people were concerned about Western Europe and North America and we thought the emerging market growth would be enough to counter that. But then we heard about rising food and fuel prices in emerging markets.

"Although phones are still considered essential and if you do not have one you will try to find the money to buy one, what we are seeing is that the people that have a phone are not necessarily upgrading. Net additions are slowing as penetration increases. If you want to continue to grow you have to rely on replacements."

She added that high inflation and the recent stock market crash meant that Gartner has revised down its initial forecast for the Chinese market.

Sony Ericsson is particularly vulnerable to a fall in consumer spending as its portfolio is concentrated towards more expensive feature-rich music and camera handsets. Its rival Nokia now rings in 75 per cent of all its handset sales outside Europe and North America but, unlike Sony Ericsson, it has targeted the low-end segment.

Ms Milanesi said: "Nokia is still in a better place to address first-time users in emerging markets as they have lower cost phones."

In a statement yesterday ahead of its results on July 18, Sony Ericsson said that it expects to ship 24 million phones in the second quarter with an average selling price of €115 (£88).

Gross margin is expected to decline year-on-year and the group is expected only to break even.

Geoff Blaber, an analyst for CCS Insight, said: "Unlike the other top five handset vendors, Sony Ericsson is highly dependent on Western Europe, with only a limited presence in high growth, emerging markets. Competing with the scale and distribution footprint of Nokia and Samsung is becoming increasingly difficult."

Sony Ericsson has recently launched two lower-tier models but is still a long way behind Nokia, Mr Blaber added. Samsung and LG are also seeking to expand their range of cheaper phones.

Yesterday's profit warning surprised the markets. James Marshall, Sony Ericsson's head of global portfolio marketing, had said on June 17 that, after the weak first quarter, the outlook for the rest of the year was more positive.

The warning immediately sent shares in the co-parent Ericsson tumbling 7.6 per cent in Stockholm, while Nokia's shares fell by 4.5 per cent in Helsinki.

Sony Ericsson had built up momentum in recent years and had been targeting the No 3 slot, but the poor sales dragged it down to fifth place, behind LG, the Korean manufacturer.

With 39 per cent of the global market share, Nokia is still the clear leader, followed by South Korea's Samsung and Motorola of America.

From : http://business.timesonline.co.uk/