Experts: No easy ride for Symbian in U.S.

Handheld software maker Symbian currently provides the operating system used on the lion’s share of the world’s smartphones, but the company will need to overcome competition from Microsoft and other hurdles in attempting to translate its global success to North America.

As in nearly every area of the mobile sector, North America — and the United States in particular — represents a vastly different market for smartphones than many other regions of the planet.

While business users and consumers in areas of Europe and Asia have already wrapped their arms around the more PC-like mobile devices, companies in the U.S. are only beginning to distribute the more powerful handhelds to larger numbers of workers.

London-based Symbian estimates that it currently provides the OS software running on 51.7 million smartphones worldwide out of a total market of 73 million of the devices, accounting for roughly 72.5 percent of the segment.

Based on that presence, the firm said it is aggressively moving to leverage its experience selling smartphones into the enterprise North American market specifically as demand for the devices increases over the next several years.

Microsoft may have ties to its other products to push use of Windows Mobile, and device makers themselves are plugging their own OS platforms, but the company’s significant exposure to real-world enterprise smartphone deployments gives it the ultimate differentiator, according to Symbian executives.

“Our primary competition today is the homegrown operating systems from handset manufacturers, and our strategy is focused on displacement through helping North American operators move from homegrown systems to the Symbian OS for the next generation of devices, which will be smartphones,” said Jerry Panagrossi, vice president of U.S. Operations at Symbian. “At this point, we don’t need to go after the Windows Mobile market, which is still very small.”

Unlike the operating systems offered by the handset makers and Microsoft, the company’s latest Symbian OS v9.5 offers greater flexibility for different devices, better support for mobile business applications, and more robust tools for handset management and applications deployment, Panagrossi said.

By having fewer ties to specific platforms than its handset rivals — many of whom are also Symbian partners and offer versions of their devices running on its OS — the company also claims to take the most standards-based approach to its architecture, giving companies greater flexibility in choosing which applications they use on their smartphones.

Many companies may want a choice of which e-mail platform they deploy in their smartphones versus getting locked into one that is available on a particular handset or using only Microsoft systems, according to the company.

In terms of competing with Microsoft, Panagrossi said that Symbian can win over customers on issues of integration and security, among others.

Through its successes in Europe and Asia, the company has created a community of smartphone applications developers that dwarfs those of Windows Mobile and other systems, he said, giving customers not only more software programs to choose from, but also the option to consider a wider array of device form factors to meet specific business needs.

“One of biggest advantages that enterprises have with us over other platforms is that of choice; if they want to purchase phones for a mobile workforce, they have complete freedom to choose from traditional phones all the way through larger phones with keyboards and different screen orientations all running the same OS,” Panagrossi said.

“We also offer multiple user interfaces for different market segments and currently support six,” he said. “So when handset manufacturers set out to create a smartphone, they can select the features they want and the user interface best fit for the target market; they’re not locked into a single UI as with other alternatives.”

For security, the executive said that Symbian offers greater ability for handset makers and end-users to control what types of applications may be allowed on their devices in order to keep unwanted malware off the handhelds.

Panagrossi points to Microsoft’s problems securing its desktop OS as an issue companies don’t want to deal with on the smartphone and said that features that eliminate unauthorized applications from running on Symbian handhelds make the devices more secure than those running on Windows Mobile.

Executives with handset giant Nokia, which serves as both partner and rival to Symbian, said that there are advantages to using the company’s products. Many of the company’s devices utilize its own OS, but others, such as its popular S60 smartphone, run the Symbian OS.

“We feel we’ve got a winning horse with Symbian, and the proof is in the European and Asian sales,” said Dan Shugrue, a marketing manager for Nokia’s software division. “Symbian gives us the flexibility needed to build phones the way we want to build them, and because we’ve had such success with Symbian and the S60 around the world, we feel it will play out similarly in the U.S.”

Shugrue specifically cited the maturity of Symbian’s mobile Web browsing software as a specific advantage over other platforms and said that despite Microsoft’s strong allegiance among customers in North America, many people will avoid the company’s OS based on security concerns and a desire for a different supplier for smartphone software.

However, market watchers say that despite its worldwide success, Symbian is struggling to gain a foothold in the U.S. The company will face major challenges in going to market against Microsoft, based on customers’ long-term commitments to the software giant’s desktop and infrastructure products, experts observed.

If Symbian is going to establish a presence in U.S. enterprises, it must significantly ratchet up efforts to get its name into more IT decision makers’ smartphone deployment discussions, analysts said.

“Now is the time — even in terms of marketing you don’t see the same momentum for Symbian in the U.S. that you see elsewhere around the globe,” said Maribel Lopez, an analyst with Forrester Research. “Microsoft has been far more aggressive in pushing Windows Mobile, and enterprise decision-makers have real commitments to Windows infrastructure that they are considering closely as they begin to buy more equipment.”

The analyst said that Symbian’s best bet may be to try and get its moniker on more people’s minds through mainstream advertising, and by attempting to make inroads into enterprise organizations via its popularity with consumers.

“There might be an opportunity for them to win deals, but they haven’t capitalized on this market yet, as it’s a great OS for people who like multimedia applications on the handheld,” said Lopez. “But in the end, enterprise IT buying decisions will be based on what businesses feel users need, not what they like, and from what we’re hearing now the familiar experience of Windows Mobile smartphones appears to be a very compelling factor.”