http://www.digitimes.com/NewsS…003/07/08&pages=08&seq=42
Quanta rumored to launch Symbian smartphone
Chinmei Sung and Max Wang, DigiTimes.com, Taipei [Tuesday 8 July 2003]
Quanta Computer is likely to become the second Taiwanese handset maker to launch a Symbian-powered smartphone, according to a recent market rumor.
Quanta declined to comment.
In the past, the manufacturing expertise in Taiwan for Symbian-powered devices had been limited due to the shortage of Symbian programmers. Only Inventec had experience with the Symbian OS because they manufactured the Psion Revo PDA device several years ago.
Currently, BenQ is the only Taiwanese company that has signed a licensing deal with Symbian, a software company based in London, to develop a smartphone based on the Symbian OS. Its P30 smartphone features a TFT LCD touch panel with 640×480 VGA resolution, a built-in digital camera, Bluetooth and tri-band GPRS. Also, the smartphone is capable of allowing users to download Java games and play MP3 music. BenQ is expected to begin selling the P30 smartphone in the fourth quarter of the year.
Symbian OS licensees include Samsung Electronics, Siemens, Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson.
It is unclear whether Quanta will market the smartphone using its “Giya” brand. Several years ago, Quanta began marketing and promoting its own-brand “Giya” handsets in Taiwan. Since then it has been reported to have signed contracts with Xoceco and other China-based companies for own-design, private-label mobile phone orders.
Lately, the Giya brand has not seemed to be promoted as heavily in Taiwan. This could be because Quanta is too busy with the ODM business or too busy branching out in the China market with larger volumes under Chinese brand names.
Quanta, which shipped about one million handsets last year, expects to ship between five million and seven million handsets this year. Current ODM customers include Siemens and Panasonic Mobile Communications.In addition, the company will likely begin shipments of a clamshell camera phone for T-Mobile International in August, but no further details have been confirmed.