23 October 2008

The UIQ Is Dead,
Long Live the Symbian Foundation!?

I’ve already informed you that UIQ is less or more dead and that Sony Eriksson has started layoff around 200 employers from the UIQ department and will seek new business lines after its owners decided to merge its software with the Symbian and port the selected UIQ technologies to Nokia S60 to provide a royalty-free open platform!

To make the situation even worse for the UIQ fans, they have cancelled two recently leaked UIQ Smartphones, very promising Sony Ericsson P5 with the code name Paris and the mid-range SE G702 also known as BeiBei but without any official word from either UIQ or the Sony Ericsson!

However, thanks to the Symbian Smartphone Show everything is quite clear now and it seems that Sony Ericsson has finally and officially confirmed that UIQ platform is dead! Sony Ericsson's Patrick Olson said in London that "UIQ didn't attract the operator, manufacturer or consumer interest needed to stop it from failing".

From other hand, Motorola who bought half of UIQ less han a year ago has refused to comment anything but they previously said that they’ll continue to support UIQ will be launching more UIQ phones before the Symbian Foundation's software platform becomes available!