Despite their troubles, Siemens still planning 15 new cellphones for this year
By Peter Rojas 
posted March 8th 2005 9:35PM
posted March 8th 2005 9:35PM
All the reports earlier this year about the imminent demise of its mobile business turned out to be a little (read: a lot) exaggerated, but Siemens says they're not going anywhere, and that they are still planning to introduce as many as 15 new cellphones (including some 3G models) this year in order to try and grab back some of the market share they've lost over the past year. The mobile division has been losing money like crazy lately, and the plan is to slash as $1.32 billion dollars in costs in order to keep the mobile division afloat.
I think they should have a user-forum for people to say what they would like in a new phone,a nd what options would convince them to buy it. And base phones off of that instead of releasing 15 phones willy-nilly.
[Hell, I think every company ever should do that.]
If they made one or two phones that lots of people would buy it would be cheaper than mass-producing/marketing/promoting 15 phones.
the problem is that Siemens once was known for bullet-proof phones (at least in germany) - well crafted, good batteries, tight keyboard etc.
now they go the way all those phone companies go - they produce toys with crappy keyboards and loose fittings that start squirking when you grab them....
i hate that - is there any company producing a proper, robust phone that has a rugged feel?
Apple should buy Siemens mobile division so as to fully leverage the iPod card ... that or relinquish their thrown to a very well designed and capacious mp3 player/phone coming your way in 6 to 12 months time
And their employees are treated like plain cannonfodder too. I was there for a couple of years doing embedded software for their phones and their CMM-plot to climb to at least level 3 turned out to be some faschistic scheme to create a titanic system not capable of avoiding an iceberg even if you told them before they left port. Also as it usually is with CMM everybody was supposed be reduced to standard exchangeable parts of the whole machinery.
So go figure ..
Look, Siemens phones' systems are hard to use. And some are designed very awkwardly. Only newer models such as Siemens SL 65 are artistic, small and good enough.
I agree that Siemens must really do a concrete market research. Siemens introduced the first phone with MP3 player several years ago. Where are its competitiveness now? Siemens' phone bring less features compared to other brands within similar price range. That's why Siemens lost the market. The product features and quality are the key success factors for Siemens