15 New handsets from Siemens
During the SK65 launch yesterday, the guys at Siemens spent a good deal of time insisting that the company is not about to get sold off or shut down. They did admit that things hadn’t gone too well for them in the past year, though – what with software issues, handsets that were late to market, and (we’re guessing) the disappointing standard of some of the phones, especially the SL55’s chunkier SL65 upgrade. To reassure us of Siemens Mobile’s rude health (number 2 in Europe, number 5 in the world), they announced that 15 new handsets would be heading our way between now and Christmas. So what can we expect? They weren’t giving much away, but we know that there will be more slider phones (hopefully to rectify the SL65 chunkiness), a clamshell and at least two 3G handsets. Siemens wouldn’t be drawn on whether a Wi-Fi handset is on the card, saying only that more announcements would be made at Cebit (so that’s a yes then). A 3G handset will be on sale in time for the Christmas market.
They admitted that they’d been a bit slow on the 3G side, but had always planned for a 2005 launch. While Italy and GB have apparently been fast on the 3G uptake, other countries are still catching up, and Siemens is aiming at the whole European market. They’ve apparently taken into account previous criticisms that they have been too lower tier in their handset output and are planning on broadening the spectrum of handsets on offer – with more business-focused handsets on the way as per the SK65. It doesn’t sound like there’s any more X2Type handsets on the way just yet though.
