UIQ Technology

The UIQ Technology Logo

UIQ Technology developed and licensed an open software platform to the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers and supported licensees in the drive towards developing a mass market for open mobile phones. The UIQ platform was, for example, used in mobile phones from Sony Ericsson, Motorola, BenQ and Arima.

The company focused on usability design, software engineering, product realization, technical consulting, sales and marketing. UIQ Technology, established in 1999, was owned jointly by Motorola and Sony Ericsson. It had a five-man board of directors, including two representatives from Motorola, two from Sony Ericsson, and one independent.

History

On November 7, 2006, Sony Ericsson announced they had agreed (in principle) to buy UIQ from Symbian Ltd. and run it as a separate subsidiary. The UIQ products would be "openly available, licensed on equal terms to all its licensees". The sale will complete in the next few months "pending regulatory approval and customary closing conditions". The acquisition was completed in February 2007.[1]

On October 15, 2007, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, Inc. announced an agreement for Motorola to purchase a 50% interest in UI Holdings BV, the parent company of UIQ Technology. The two companies worked and invested jointly in the development of UIQ.

UIQ Technology was based in Ronneby, Sweden and situated in the Soft Center Science & Research Park. The General Manager was Johan Sandberg. At that time, UIQ Technology had about 200 staffs.

End of UIQ

With the establishment of Symbian Foundation in 2008, UIQ will cease to exist. S60 is the UI choice of Symbian Foundation; UIQ will contribute its assets to the foundation.[2] Patrick Olsson of Sony Ericsson announced on October 21, 2008 at the Smartphone Show 2008 in London that UIQ didn't make the cut,[3] it didn't attract the operator, manufacturer or consumer interest needed to stop it from failing.[4]

At the start of January, 2009, UIQ Technology filed for bankruptcy.[5]

The Platform

UIQ 3.3 was the last version of the platform, based upon Symbian OS v9.3, which served as the core operating system. Developers that developed on the UIQ 3.x platform had a much better story than previous releases, since all UIQ 3.x phones was served by a single, core SDK.

The original version of the platform was known as Quartz.

History

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

See also

References

  1. "History". UIQ Technology. 2007. Archived from the original on 23 May 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-17.
  2. "Symbian Foundation continues to draw strong industry support", Sony Ericsson press release 2008-09-09, retrieved 2008-10-24
  3. on 2008-10-21, retrieved 2008-10-24
  4. on 2008-10-22, retrieved 2008-10-24
  5. The end of UIQ. Esato. Retrieved on 2013-12-08.
  6. The Register UK - 'files for bankruptcy' in Sweden
  7. The Local - More than 200 jobless following UIQ's bankruptcy
  8. Electronista - UIQ declares bankruptcy

External links

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