Geoworks announced a significant evolution to its GEOS operating system that will allow handset manufacturers to quickly produce a range of low-end to high-end smart phones.
Consumer electronics giant Mitsubishi has licensed the upgraded system, the GEOS-SC, to manufacture and ship next year a new line of mid-priced mobile communications devices that will combine voice and data services for the Japanese market. Mitsubishi has not revealed what type of devices it plans to introduce.
Nokia Corp.’s 9000i Communicator uses the GEOS operating system. The product is a high-end smart phone that combines voice, data and personal organizer functions in one handset. Users can send and receive faxes, short paging messages and e-mail, access the Internet and use such desktop applications as an electronic calendar, address book, note pad and calculator.
Alameda, Calif.-based Geoworks said its new GEOS-SC graphical operating system is lighter, more portable and robust and features object-oriented technology and a modular design that allows manufacturers to select only the functionality they need in their devices. Manufacturers also can add more functionality, such as e-mail capabilities, without changing the entire system or compromising the phone’s functions or battery life.
The application’s flexible user interface creates a way for manufacturers to enhance brand identity in their devices and emphasize product differentiation, said Geoworks. Equipment makers can use the same core operating system, yet create completely different handheld communications products. Products can range from graphically enhanced wireless phones that combine telephony capabilities with targeted graphical information services, to feature-rich all-in-one communicators that offer a wider range of telephony, content and information capabilities.
Dan Taylor, director of telecom research with the Aberdeen Group in Boston, said Geoworks’ announcement “is absolutely a driver for the smart phone market. As service providers seek to differentiate, they will need a set of smart phones that they can customize to a certain degree … That’s the big picture in this: Enabling more services to be deployed more rapidly on handsets.”
Gordon Mayer, Geoworks’ chairman and chief executive officer, said the design goal of the GEOS-SC is to reduce time to market for original equipment manufacturers. Typically, OEMs take nearly two years to introduce a new product. GEOS-SC can reduce that time to between nine and 12 months for the first product and three to six months for the second product, he said.
Geoworks said it will focus on infiltrating the GEOS-SC into Japanese handsets. With a 27-percent penetration rate, quick handset turnover, fast wireless data rates and a high acceptance of new technology, the Japanese market is ripe for the entrance of new enhanced phones and smart communicators, the company believes. When other markets are ready for the technology, Geoworks’ software already will be included in devices Japanese makers export.
Toshiba Corp. introduced the GEOS-based Genio PCV100 Pocket Communicator earlier this year in Japan, targeting the Personal Handyphone System market. The product, which has wireless Web browsing capability along with voice and data features, reportedly has a high acceptance rate in this market.
“At 32 kilobits per second, Japan has the world’s fastest commercial wide- area wireless data communications throughput. Carriers are using this as a new means of attracting and maintaining business and data users. Wireless subscribers there have already demonstrated a willingness to adopt the most advanced mobile phone technology available. So Geoworks is smart to focus on the Japanese market,” said Phillip Redman, senior analyst with The Yankee Group in Boston.
By providing a product that addresses both enhanced phones and smart communicators, Geoworks believes it is addressing two important and distinct segments of the industry mobile phone operators previously have lumped into one large market-the business and consumer market.
“The business person is on the road, rushing to a hotel to get to a fax machine,” said Mayer. “The next logical step is people saying they want all communication capabilities on their phone … Consumers want ease of use. (L.M.) Ericsson says 85 percent of (those) people only use their phone for voice. People aren’t using their manuals. A low-end version of our GEOS-SC enhanced phone delivers a simple graphical user interface on today’s phone. It allows each manufacturer to use a distinct branding and advertising message.”
The business and consumer segments eventually will converge, and GEOS-SC will be in position to capitalize on that, said Mayer. “What drives that convergence is the user saying, `I want something else’ … E-mail will drive the consumer product to converge with the business product over time.”
Geoworks said the GEOS-SC, an open platform, eventually will replace GEOS, but several manufacturers will ship products next year using GEOS. After 1999, the only products encompassing Geoworks’ software in the market will be GEOS-SC-based, said Mayer.
