By Tony Hallett, 12 February 2003 16:01
NEWS Taiwan-based BenQ has licensed the Symbian operating system for smart phones. The handset-maker will get access to the OS source code and design phones for 2.5G and 3G networks around the world. The first fruits of the relationship should be seen by the third quarter this year, the companies announced. Last year BenQ shipped 16 million mobile phones. Symbian and its backers - heavyweights such as Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia as well as Psion, where the OS's roots lie - refer to the OS as "the global industry standard open operating system for advanced mobile phones". However, it faces a tough battle over coming years against the Palm OS and Microsoft's PocketPC for PDAs and Windows Smartphone OSes. BenQ will also license the UIQ user interface, to develop touch-sensitive and other types of colour display. UIQ is a Symbian subsidiary based in Ronneby, Sweden. The Taiwanese handset company is little known outside the Far East but has manufacturing facilities in China, Malaysia and Mexico as well as domestically. It also has 12 per cent of its 13,000 staff in R&D, some at a facility in California. Nine companies are now Symbian licensees. BenQ cited a rapidly growing network of developers and related third-party technology as some of the reasons for entering the Symbian camp.
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