Creation of Symbian Foundation means heads will roll: UIQ slashes 200 jobs
Though the creation of the Symbian Foundation will likely ultimately come to benefit and unify the platform's various flavors, one terribly unpleasant side effect of the action in the short term is the positional redundancy created as S60, UIQ, and other units become virtual roommates. Some of the first casualties of the merger come from UIQ, which has announced a total of 200 layoffs -- over half of its 375-strong staff. UIQ has never garnered quite the attention of its S60 sibling, and we wouldn't be surprised if the group were to end up being hardest-hit of the Foundation's puzzle pieces. Ironically, beleaguered Motorola is a stakeholder in UIQ at the moment; as the parent goes, so goes the child, it seems.[Via All About Symbian]
Filed under: Symbian
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Justin @ Jun 27th 2008 3:30AM
That just plain sucks. The UIQ folks were the descendants of Psion's "Quartz" pen-based UI team (hence UIQ). They were a bit of a quirky bunch with innovative ideas and their lack of success certainly wasn't because they lacked talent.
Nokia's intent on developing their own S60 UI was the first major blow to the entire Symbian idea - ultimately forcing Symbian to sell the UIQ unit to Sony Ericsson, its only remaining major customer. It didn't make sense for Nokia to compete with their supplier, after all...
Thank you to the UIQ team. You guys always came through with neat ideas and a solid implementation, even with relatively limited resources.
I'll never forget how amazed I was the first time I held a P800...