In a move long speculated since the announcement of the new Symbian Foundation last year, UIQ Technology CEO Johan Sandber announced to the Swedish newspaper Sydöstran that the company has declared bankruptcy and would begin liquidation proceedings after failing to secure additional funding from the companies’ principal ownership between Sony Ericsson and Motorola, who purchased a 50% controlling interest just last year.
UIQ Technology was the product of the former Ericsson borne out of the Mobile Applications Lab initiative that led to the first European mass market touch display smart device platform, but never gained much traction outside of Europe and dedicated enthusiast communities due to its high development curve and low carrier support.
Sony Ericsson was the first major licensor of the platform and released the P800 smart device in 2002, following it up with the P900/P910 in 2004. Â Motorola and BenQ followed with the A920/925/1000, Japanese market M1000 and the P90 respectively. Â By 2006, Sony Ericsson was the only major licensor in the platform until 2007 when Motorola announced the Z8.
2008 marked a transistion year for UIQ as Motorola and Sony Ericsson announced the Z10 and G800/G900 handsets, but when Nokia announced the formation of the consolidated Symbian Foundation in July, any hope of seeing further UIQ development was dashed when the company was told that it would only receive funding for two months beginning in November from its principal investors while new buyers were sought out.
Now with 200 people laid off, the company has had no choice but to declare bankruptcy in order to cover close to eight years in losses and expenses, with former employees going as far as blaming the closure on poor executive management.
It’s worth noting that while UIQ is going away, this really is a good thing for fans of UIQ. Symbian will be able to take advantage of the technological initiatives that UIQ had a grip-hold on from Sony Ericsson and Motorola.
Unless both Sony Ericsson and Motorola bail out of Symbian, and switch purely to Android (more likely for Motorola, less likely for Sony Ericsson), you’ll likely see the same form-factor UIQ devices using Symbian within the next 12 to 18 months.
The nice things about UIQ, as seen on Sony Ericsson phones (for example, taking advantage of a manufacturer’s signature UI, instead of a conformist S60 UI) will likely be adopted by Symbian in the long run anyways.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Symbian Foundation doesn’t acquire the remaining assets left outstanding. There really aren’t any buyers that would be interested in Symbian R&D, that don’t already stand to benefit from the Symbian Foundation going open-sourced.