Smartphone Thoughts: Never Heard of Sierra? That's Fine By Me!

The entrance of Sierra Wireless into the Windows Mobile Smartphone market certainly caught a few people by surprise. A lot of people around the Internet were hoping for a major player like Siemens or Sony-Ericsson to be revealed as the Mystery Partner. Sierra Wireless, while well known for their PCMCIA cellular modems for notebooks, is hardly a marquee name on the mobile handset stage. Personally, I'm happy that they aren't.
Let's look at the PDA market for a moment. Five years ago, "PDA" meant Palm - much the same way that "cell phone" has meant Nokia for so long. The first Pocket PC I saw was Casio's Cassiopeia. Casio? They make watches and keyboards right? Next came HP. That made some sense since they made calculators and PCs. Next was Compaq, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Asus, ViewSonic, et cetera. Consumers didn�t associate any of those companies with PDAs. They certainly do now. Now, when people talk about their PDA, you can't assume it's a Palm. They are just as likely to be talking about a Pocket PC delivered by one of those market new-comers. Because of this, Palm has had to take major steps to remain relevant - including buying Handspring and spinning off the software side of their house.

Are we witnessing the same thing happen in the Smartphone market? Who are the current players in the Smartphone market? Essentially, companies unknown outside of the cell phone industry. Mitac, Chi Mei, and Compal have certainly been around, but they are not household brand names for phones. Motorola and Samsung are. HTC is not a known brand, but the iPaq they make for HP sure is. Then, we have the true mobile phone new-comers. Asus, motherboard maker of legend and song, has shown off its possible Smartphone entry. And, as of today, we have Sierra Wireless and its rather intriguing Voq. Most of these companies may not have the name recognition of Nokia, Siemens, or Ericsson. They do, however, represent the start of the charge against market-leader Nokia. And these companies really are just the beginning. HP was reportedly getting price quotes from Taiwanese manufacturers earlier this year. A Dell executive has been quoted as saying it would "probably" launch a Windows Mobile phone. I�m willing to bet there are still a couple of surprises out there, too.

Will the entrance of new-comers to the cell phone industry be successful in chipping away at Nokia's market-leading position as new-comers to the PDA market were with Palm's? Only time � and more phones on the market - will tell. To date, only HTC and Mitac have phones shipping. The timing of new phones arriving will be critical. Nokia released its N-Gage gamer-oriented phone to critical yawns this week. The device has been criticized heavily as both a phone and as a gaming device � the two things it strives to be. Several reviewers have characterized the phone as a desperate attempt to drive lagging sales. Nokia has put a lot of time, money, and marketing behind this device. Should it turn into the market flop predicted by some, it will be a golden opportunity for the new-comers to step in and show what they�ve got.

Welcome, Sierra Wireless, and good luck! I look forward to getting to know you better.