UIQ Technology
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
- Spring - Ericsson Mobile Communications in Lund set up a development lab in Ronneby called Mobile Applications Lab. This was the precursor of UIQ Technology.
- June - Symbian Ltd. was established in London.
1999
- 1 April - The company became part of Symbian Ltd, and the new company name was Symbian AB. Work was focused on Quartz 6.0, which was the pen-based communicator later known as UIQ.
- December - Number of permanent employees: 21
2000
- February - Quartz was publicly announced.
- May - Johan Sandberg was appointed General Manager.
- September - The first product release of Quartz 6.0 was made.
- December - Number of permanent employees: 78.
2001
- April - Quartz 6.1 was released.
- December - Number of permanent employees: 76.
2002
- February - The company name was changed to UIQ Technology AB and the product was renamed UIQ.
- March - UIQ 2.0 was released.
- December - Number of permanent employees: 85.
- December - The first UIQ phone, Sony Ericsson P800, was released.
- December - UIQ Selected Partner Program was launched for UIQ 2.1.
2003
- February - UIQ 2.1 was made public.
- October - The first UIQ 2.1 based phone, Sony Ericsson P900, reached the market. Motorola A920 was launched.
- December - Number of permanent employees: 102.
2004
- February - UIQ 3 was announced at 3GSM.
- February - Motorola A925, Sony Ericsson P910, BenQ P30, Motorola A1000 reached the market.
- December - Number of permanent employees: 110.
- December - UIQ Selected Partner Program was launched for UIQ 3.
2005
- September - First UIQ 3 phone was announced - the Sony Ericsson P990
- September - UIQ developer program launched
2006
- February - Second and third UIQ 3 phones are announced - the Sony Ericsson M600 and the Sony Ericsson W950 - as the platform moves into high volume, mid-tier devices
- February - UIQ developer program launches premium level membership and hosts WDF developer track at 3GSM
- November - Sony Ericsson announces that it has agreed to buy UIQ Technology
2007
- February - UIQ 3.1 is released followed shortly by the SDK.
- February - The Motorola RIZR Z8 is announced.
- February - Sony Ericsson finishes the acquisition of UIQ Technology from Symbian Ltd.
- May - The Sony Ericsson P1i is announced.
- October - Motorola acquires 50% interest in UIQ Technology parent company UI Holdings BV.
2008
- March - UIQ 3.3 was announced.
- December - UIQ files for bankruptcy following the announcements of the open source Symbian Foundation earlier the same year.[6][7][8]
See also
References
- ↑ "History". UIQ Technology. 2007. Archived from the original on 23 May 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-17.
- ↑ "Symbian Foundation continues to draw strong industry support", Sony Ericsson press release 2008-09-09, retrieved 2008-10-24
- ↑ on 2008-10-21, retrieved 2008-10-24
- ↑ on 2008-10-22, retrieved 2008-10-24
- ↑ The end of UIQ. Esato. Retrieved on 2013-12-08.
- ↑ The Register UK - 'files for bankruptcy' in Sweden
- ↑ The Local - More than 200 jobless following UIQ's bankruptcy
- ↑ Electronista - UIQ declares bankruptcy