Here at Symbian's Smartphone show today in London, SonyEricsson tapped yet another nail into UIQ's coffin by publicly saying "UIQ didn't attract the operator, manufacturer or consumer interest needed to stop it failing", so their stance is pretty clear. However, what is Motorola's view on the future? Read on to see what we found out...

 

In a word... nothing!

 

At least nothing that they're going to admit to publicly. We know, or at least we think we know, that they still have a UIQ strategy and will be launching new UIQ phones before the Symbain Foundation's software becomes available, but they weren't willing to tell us anything publicly... all mentions of UIQ, S60 and future phones were met with a blanket "we're not telling you".

 

So we tried another tack... "What about firmware updates for existing phones, like the Z8 and Z10?" we aksed... guess the answer... NADA! Motorola rolled out the now familiar line of "we need to make sure that any self-update system is completely fool proof. We need to make sure that it will work on every handset (unlike Nokia). We need time to test and get approved all the myriad of operator versions we have for the firmwares. We need to have a cup of tea. (ok, they didn't say the last one, but you get the idea)

 

In effect, there STILL is no strategy for supporting existing handsets. What you have on your phone is pretty much what you're stuck with, unless you find *another* way of updating your firmware... of course we would never condone any proceedure which may invalidate your warranty!