This article is more than 1 year old

Bugs delay flagship MS phone

Again

The Sendo Z100 has been delayed again, with a spokesperson for Sendo citing integration issues as the cause. The Z100 was originally slated to ship last autumn [Feb 01 prediction], then delayed to first quarter of this year [Nov 01 prediction] - which we said here might be a touch optimistic - was subsequently delayed to June [March 02 prediction]. The latest prediction sees it coming in during "September/October", a spokesperson told us today, although industry sources have been briefed that it's most definitely now a Q4 product.

"Everything about the form-factor is new - it's testing, testing, testing," explained a Sendo spokesperson.

An email sent to Sendo developers last week said SDKs had been delayed for "legal reasons". But sources speak of much finger-pointing between Microsoft, which provides the Smartphone 2002 OS (aka Stinker) for the phone, and hardware manufacturer Sendo, which also provides software applications and the JavaVM.

One reason, we've argued here at El Reg, why that the phone business isn't like the PC business is because integration involves much more than simply bunging a CD in the post to Dell. (See "Make a Phone, if you think you're hard enough", here.

Although it's a relatively new start-up, Sendo isn't short of very able engineers who know how to integrate software into phones very well, thank you: the company's core employees acquired hundreds of man years of experience at Philips.

Sendo officially denied that delays to the Z100 would cause a roadmap pile-up, and wouldn't comment on the phone's successor. Industry sources say the follow-up device, which was due to ship six months after Z100, is "about half the size, and very nice". That leaves the Z100 with a small, and shrinking, window of opportunity. ®

Related Stories

Microsoft dispatches phone OEMs to knife Bluetooth

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like