UIQ Technology AB was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

company that developed and licensed the

UIQ UIQ (formerly known as User Interface Quartz) was a software platform based upon Symbian OS, created by UIQ Technology AB. It is a graphical user interface layer that provides additional components to the core operating system, to enable the deve ...

software based on

Symbian OS Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian ...

which was used in smartphone offerings from

Sony Ericsson Sony Mobile Communications Inc. ( ja, ソニーモバイルコミュニケーションズ株式会社) was a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1, 2001, as a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation and Ericsson. I ...

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

BenQ BenQ Corporation (; ) is a Taiwanese multinational company that sells and markets technology products, consumer electronics, computing and communications devices under the "BenQ" brand name, which stands for the company slogan ''Bringing Enj ...

and

Arima Arima, officially The Royal Chartered Borough of Arima is the easternmost and second largest in area of the three boroughs of Trinidad and Tobago. It is geographically adjacent to Sangre Grande and Arouca at the south central foothills of th ...

. They were based in the Soft Center Science & Research Park in

Ronneby Ronneby is a locality and the seat of Ronneby Municipality in Blekinge County, Sweden with 12,029 inhabitants in 2010. Ronneby is regarded as the heart of "the Garden of Sweden", and in 2005 the park "Brunnsparken" in Ronneby was voted Sweden's m ...

, Sweden, and at the time of its closure in 2009 was jointly owned by

and Sony Ericsson.

History

UIQ Technology was established in April 1999 as Symbian AB, a wholly owned subsidiary of Symbian Ltd., following their acquisition of Ericsson Mobile Applications Lab from

Ericsson Mobile Communications Ericsson Mobile Communications AB was a subsidiary of Ericsson, entirely focused on development of mobile phones (handsets). The major offices were located in Lund, Kumla, Raleigh, North Carolina and Lynchburg, Virginia. History Under the command ...

. Using technology gained from the acquisition they created the

platform which launched in 2002 and as the company changed its name to UIQ Technology. In 2002

and

(both members of Symbian Ltd.) came close to a joint venture, but this was abandoned when Motorola chose to use a

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

-based platform in 2003. As a result, Sony Ericsson was the main licensee for UIQ. On 7 November 2006, Sony Ericsson announced they had agreed (in principle) to buy UIQ Technology from Symbian Ltd. and run it as a separate subsidiary. The UIQ products would be "openly available, licensed on equal terms to all its licensees". The acquisition was completed in February 2007. Interestingly this meant Sony Ericsson got back this division that was originally created by them in 1998 (as Ericsson, before the joint venture with

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

). On 15 October 2007, Sony Ericsson and Motorola announced an agreement for Motorola to purchase a 50% interest in UI Holdings BV, the legal parent company of UIQ Technology. The two companies worked and invested jointly in the development of UIQ.

End of UIQ

With the establishment in 2008 of the

Symbian Foundation The Symbian Foundation was a non-profit organisation that stewarded the Symbian operating system for mobile phones which previously had been owned and licensed by Symbian Ltd. Symbian Foundation never directly developed the platform, but evangelis ...

led by

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...

(and which both Sony Ericsson and Motorola joined), UIQ's future was in doubt. S60 was the UI choice of Symbian Foundation; UIQ would contribute its assets to the foundation. Patrick Olsson of Sony Ericsson announced on 21 October 2008 at the Smartphone Show 2008 in London that UIQ didn't make the cut, it didn't attract the operator, manufacturer or consumer interest needed to stop it from failing. Sony Ericsson funded the company for a few months to help management to restructure or find a buyer. On 5 January 2009, UIQ Technology filed for bankruptcy and ceased to exist.

Timeline

1998 * Spring -

Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...

set up a development lab in Ronneby called Mobile Applications Lab. This was the precursor of UIQ Technology. * June - Symbian Ltd. was established in London. 1999 * 1 April - The company became part of Symbian Ltd, and the new company name was Symbian AB. Work was focused on Quartz 6.0, which was the pen-based communicator later known as UIQ. * December - Number of permanent employees: 21 2000 * February - Quartz was publicly announced. * May - Johan Sandberg was appointed General Manager. * September - The first product release of Quartz 6.0 was made. * December - Number of permanent employees: 78. 2001 * April - Quartz 6.1 was released. * December - Number of permanent employees: 76. 2002 * February - The company name was changed to UIQ Technology AB and the product was renamed UIQ. * March - UIQ 2.0 was released. * December - Number of permanent employees: 85. * December - The first UIQ phone,

Sony Ericsson P800 The Sony Ericsson P800 is a smartphone introduced in 2002 based upon UIQ version 2.0 (which itself is based upon Symbian OS v7.0) from Sony Ericsson. The P800 is considered the successor of the Ericsson R380, and initial design work was done withi ...

, was released. * December - UIQ Selected Partner Program was launched for UIQ 2.1. 2003 * February - UIQ 2.1 was made public. * October - The first UIQ 2.1 based phone,

Sony Ericsson P900 The Sony Ericsson P900 is a Symbian OS v7.0 based smartphone from Sony Ericsson. It was introduced in 2003 and is the successor of the Sony Ericsson P800; like the P800, the P900 uses the UIQ platform. Like other Symbian-based smartphones of it ...

, reached the market. Motorola A920 was launched. * December - Number of permanent employees: 102. 2004 * February -

3 was announced at 3GSM. * February - Motorola A925,

Sony Ericsson P910 The Sony Ericsson P910 is a smartphone by Sony Ericsson introduced in 2004 and the successor of the Sony Ericsson P900. The P910 has a full QWERTY keyboard on the back of the flip (the flip can also be removed completely, allowing for a 'traditio ...

, BenQ P30,

Motorola A1000 Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...

reached the market. * December - Number of permanent employees: 110. * December - UIQ Selected Partner Program was launched for UIQ 3. 2005 * September - First

3 phone was announced - the

Sony Ericsson P990 Sony Ericsson P990 is a smartphone and the successor of Sony Ericsson P910. The phone uses the UIQ 3 software platform, which is based upon Symbian OS 9.1. It was introduced on 11 October 2005, but had a long delayed market release only in Augu ...

* September - UIQ developer program launched 2006 * February - Second and third

3 phones are announced - the

Sony Ericsson M600 Sony Ericsson M600 (sold as M600i model in some markets and originally labelled M608c in other markets) is a 3G smartphone based upon the UIQ 3 platform (which is built upon Symbian OS 9.1). It was announced on February 6, 2006 and is the fi ...

and the

Sony Ericsson W950 The Sony Ericsson W950i is the third UIQ 3 smartphone based on Symbian OS v9.1. It was announced on February 13, 2006, a week after the announcement of the Sony Ericsson M600. Background The W950 is Sony Ericsson's sixth Walkman phone. One o ...

- as the platform moves into high volume, mid-tier devices * February - UIQ developer program launches premium level membership and hosts WDF developer track at 3GSM * November - Sony Ericsson announces that it has agreed to buy UIQ Technology 2007 * February -

3.1 is released followed shortly by the SDK. * February - The

Motorola RIZR Z8 Motorola Rizr (, styled RIZR) is a series of slide mobile phones from Motorola, and is one of the series in the 4LTR line. The first model was released in late 2006. It is a sliding phone (in the style of competing Samsung and LG phones), wher ...

is announced. * February - Sony Ericsson finishes the acquisition of UIQ Technology from Symbian Ltd. * May - The

Sony Ericsson P1 The Sony Ericsson P1 is a smartphone and the successor of the P990. It was the last of the Sony Ericsson "P" Smartphone series, introduced in 2002 with the Sony Ericsson P800 and it integrates many of the hardware features of its predecessor the ...

i is announced. * October -

acquires 50% interest in UIQ Technology parent company UI Holdings BV. 2008 * March -

3.3 was announced. 2009 * January - UIQ files for bankruptcy following the announcements of the open source

earlier in 2008.

References

External links

*
UIQ developer portal & UIQ 3 SDK
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uiq Technology Telecommunications companies of Sweden Motorola Sony Mobile Companies based in Blekinge County

History

End of UIQ

Timeline

See also

References

External links