UIQ files for bankruptcy

Following a board meeting on 29th December the board of UIQ Technology resolved to file for bankruptcy. This follows on from the news, in early November, that staff had been put on notice and a temporary transition period was being funded by Sony Ericsson. With that period over, with no alternative investor available and given the current economic climate the board had no choice but to shutter the company.

Approximately 200 people were still working for UIQ when the announcement was made. Responsibility for the operating and winding down of UIQ Technology falls to the insolvency administrator appointed by the Blekinge district court.

"There are no opportunities to create a new line of business in the current financial climate," UIQ Chief Executive Johan Sandberg told Reuters.

Johan Sandberg, CEO of UIQ Technology said, "We got into a position where we have no customers, no product to sell, and therefore no income either" (rough translation from Swedish).

While this outcome has been the most likely since the announcement of the Symbian foundation last year the decline has been rapid. Sony Ericsson's decision to switch, sooner rather than later, to the Symbian Foundation Platform (effectively S60) and Motorola cancellation of its substantial 2009 UIQ portfolio (and switch to Android), both accelerated the decline of UIQ Technology.

UIQ Technology appoint Chairman of the Board

UIQ Technology today announced that Dr. Colin Tucker has been appointed to the position of Non-Executive Independent Chairman of the Board of Directors of UIQ Technology. Other members of the board come from UIQ's owners, Sony Ericsson and Motorola. Dr. Tucker has previsouly held executive positions at a number of mobile companies including Orange and Hutchison.


The UIQ Board's role is to advise the UIQ management team and continually assess the company's financial standing and contribute to strategic developer on behalf of its parent companies. An Independent Chairman is desirable in order to promote stability in the ownership of UIQ Technology.

When Sony Ericsson bought UIQ Technology from Symbian and, subsequently, when Motorola became a joint shareholder, there was an emphasis on good corporate governance and a clear ownership structure. The intention of both Sony Ericsson and Motorola is to keep equal shareholdings between current and future shareholders. This is probably a reflection on a desire to avoid complications similar to those that have resulted from the fragmented ownership of Symbian.

UIQ Developer Fast Track Event in USA

Once again it’s time for the Fast Track Team at UIQ Technology to bring the cutting edge developer event to the US - The UIQ Developer Fast Track Event. The event will be held in two cities, Boston on the 15th – 16th of May and San Francisco 19th – 20th of May 2008.

All UIQ Developer Fast Track attendees will become a happy owner of one UIQ Phone each. The phones that are up for grabs are the MOTORIZR Z8, Sony Ericsson P1 and Sony Ericsson W960.

Agenda
Speaker
Session

Google Maps client for UIQ 3!!

Google map client was earlier available on J2ME for symbian phones. Now Google has released UIQ client for Google maps. The new client is fast, looks neat and has a function called 'My Location' which basically gives a guess of your whereabouts.

After being partner of UIQ in January, none should be surprised for Google's support for UIQ applications.

One can download it from http://www.google.com/gmm .

First UIQ v3.2 phone is launched!

Motorola has just officially announced the MOTO Z10, an upgrade to the Z8 and the first phone based on UIQ 3.2. Compared to Z8, the Z10 has HSDPA (3.6 Mbps), support for up to 32 GB microSD cards (in addition to 90 MB of internal storage memory), 3.2 Megapixel camera (3 shots per second) with 30 fps video recording (QVGA only though) and a video editing software preinstalled. Sadly, the specs do not mention any trace of WiFi, so most probably it's still not there. This dual mode, quadband phone (UMTS 2100, HSDPA 3.6Mbps Quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE Class 12) weighs 115 g and measures 109x15.5 / 16.5mm and retains Z8's "banana" design. Li-Ion 1030 mAh battery provides approximately 5 hours of 3G talk time, 5 hours of video playback and 12 hours of music playback. 2.2" QVGA 16 million colors TFT display provides 30 frames per second video playback. Read more @ Motorola.com and UIQ.com. Learn more about UIQ 3.2 here.

UIQ Open 2008 - UIQ software development competition

The UIQ Open is an application competition where you submit your most creative UIQ 3 application(s) and a panel of judges selects two winners in five categories to reward each application with a UIQ phone, marketing and commercial packages, and more. On top of that, the winners will have their application featured in the UIQ Application Demo Suite 2008.

The purpose of this competition is to generate and gather applications that demonstrate the capabilities of the UIQ platform and at the same time increase the visibility of the UIQ applications and promote those companies to the public.

All types of submissions are welcome: amateur personal demos, open source projects, commercial applications - all are entitled to win as we will award entries that best show off the UIQ platform. Cool technologies, original use of functionalities, innovative solutions, even porting of successful applications from other platforms is what matters. If your application is cool or trendy or eye candy or ground-breaking or revolutionary or has the potential to make you filthy rich or is simply addictive, then don't hesitate, enter the competition: winning the UIQ Open is the perfect showcase for it!

Timeline

The competition is until December 31, 2007. The winners will be announced early 2008.

Prizes

The complete prize package includes the following:

• A UIQ 3 phone of your choice
• Handango — featured product placement, worth $1000
• An invitation to a UIQ Fast Track 2008 event
• Motricity — marketing package, worth €1000
• An Accredited Symbian Developer exam fee
• Handmark — featured product placement, worth $1000
• A Wirelexsoft's VistaMax IDE 2.0 full license
• Smartsym — featured product placement, worth €1000

For more details: UIQ Open 2008