David Wood recently posted an interesting thought on the Symbian Foundation blog, positioning Symbian as a consumer brand. This is different than simply being present on consumer electronics – a consumer brand is something that consumers are aware of, and actively seek (or seek to avoid), and is something that Symbian needs badly, if they’re going to continue in this smartphone arena. The guys at AllAboutSymbian have an excellent post with some thoughts on this, and I wanted to share mine, as well.
Shortly after this blog post went up, my friend Eric Zeman, from Phonescoop, shot me an email, asking my position on the whole thing. This has been a major limiting factor of S60, specifically in the U.S. – consumers don’t know what it is, so they don’t know to ask for it, or better yet, why they *should* ask for it.
Windows Mobile makes use of many similarities between Windows, to its advantage. The start menu, etc, gives consumers a familiar feel, and even in the naming, I’ve heard many consumers say in the store, ‘I use Windows on my computer, so Windows Mobile will probably work great for me’. It’s the same with the iPhone. How many iPhone fanatics have you heard boast that their phone runs OS X (which is likely not ENTIRELY true, but it’s marketed as such)
With S60, there’s zero recognition there, and I would imagine it’s the same in Europe – likely no one walks into a mobile shop and says, ‘What’s the latest S60 phone you have?’ I like the idea of branding it and seeing Symbian actually doing some MARKETING, again, specifically in the U.S.
However, this is a massive undertaking, as they’re going to need to clean up the Symbian ecosystem quite a bit. Consumers don’t know (or care) if their device is FP1 or FP2, and thus when a developer creates an app that’s for FP1 only, no one knows what that means. One of the main reasons the iPhone’s apps have taken off (aside from the store) is because they’re only made for a single device – there’s zero segmentation, for better or worse.
Even S60 die-hards like me get frustrated with the selective availability of applications/features. If they’re going to make consumers aware that their phone runs on Symbian, they need to further work to ensure that ‘Symbian’ means something specific, and doesn’t lend itself to more confusion.
[Image courtesy of AllAboutSymbian]
