Siemens, which is no longer the shirt sponsor of Real Madrid C.F., did a mea culpa yesterday and ate crow over the fact that Wi-Fi-only phones have been a complete and utter failure. The company has been a big supporter of the phones, which are meant to connect to Skype and other VoIP providers, but is now prepared to scuttle the ship. The key phrase in those previous two sentences was “Wi-Fi-only,” because Siemens still sees a market for Wi-Fi-compatible phones, just not those that are exclusively Wi-Fi. The technology has evolved to the point where companies can now incorporate Wi-Fi into phones almost as an afterthought.
The holy grail of phones? One that combines cellular, POTS cordless and Wi-Fi service, which is pretty similar to what we heard at CES back in January.