November 9, 2008 — 
Reuters informed that a preliminary agreement regarding collaboration in the mobile phones industry was signed in Seoul between LG Electronics Inc. and Microsoft, during Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s trip to South Korea. “The agreement ensures continued strategic collaboration in R&D, marketing, applications, and services in the field of converged mobile devices” said a LG representative.
“Both companies will continue to define and align their mobile strategies through annual top management meeting.”
At the same time Samsung announced a new version of their latest Windows Mobile powered smartphone. Read the “Korean Samsung Omnia released!” article for more information. The new Samsung Omnia will be available after 15th November at SK Telecom, the biggest mobile operator from South Korea.
Symbian’s authority is going down. Sony Ericsson and Motorola have recently said bye-bye to the Symbian UIQ smartphone platform and Windows Mobile can continue fighting with the Symbian OS, which is supported by Nokia, still the No. 1 mobile phone producer. New smartphones are featuring the Android OS developed by Google Inc. RIM ( with Blackberry) and Apple ( with IPhone ) are also starting to threat Symbian.
It is strange that both LG and Samsung are members of the Symbian Foundation although and they are selling Symbian, Google Android and Windows Mobile based smartphones and pda’s. Latest LG phone operating with Windows Mobile is the LG KS20 released in January 2008, while the most recent Samsung with Windows Mobile (T*Omnia) was oficially released just a few weeks ago. It is too hard to choose the winner so they, for now all posibilities will remain open.
“Competition is getting more and more fierce in the smartphone segment, and South Korean makers have some weaknesses on Symbian platforms, so it is understandable that they would broaden their alliances.” declared Greg Roh, analyst at Korea Investment & Securities.
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