Symbian As Open Source – What Is Nokia Up To?
By Charles A. Wilde
The “Big News” recently is the well timed announcement that Nokia was buying up the remaining shares in Symbian and reinventing the previously proprietary mobile operating system as open source. With the addition of differing and proprietary user interface layers, the new open source offering provides a real, market tested alternative to the still to be market tested Google Android, and other Linux Mobile initiatives.
Building a good mobile phone operating system is an incredibly difficult task. The small size of the mobile devices camouflage the underlying complexity of the task. Even the seasoned development veterans working for Steve Jobs at Apple apparently underestimated the scope of the necessary work, and ended up diverting most of Apple’s technical resources from the Leopard MAC OS release into iPhone development to complete it on time. Ultimately, the diversion of resources has proven to be a wise decision, even though Leopard was released with an embarrassment of bugs. The iPhone is coveted around the world.
Apple Demonstrates the Right Way to Develop a Phone
As much as one might grumble about the heavy hand of proprietary forces in the world of software, there is a definite upside when the guiding vision is clearly focused. The willingness to share the wealth with a broad based ecosystem is also essential to the success of a mobile venture.
So, Apple is making many of the right moves with its iPhone, starting with a highly competent Unix kernel and adding the Zen like simplifications to the user experience that are a Steve Jobs trademark. the company opened up the iPhone to the world of independent software developers, yet retained ultimate control of the iPhone ecosystem through the Apple store. In a nod to business users, Apple convinced Microsoft to allow Exchange and ActiveSync technology on the iPhone. All in all, a well done result.
Microsoft Versus Blackberry
Microsoft with its Windows Mobile initiative continues to make incremental improvements that have created a device that is, arguably, the best for enterprise business applications. RIM Blackberry devices also compete well here. Indeed the RIM and Microsoft market shares of the high end business smartphone market are almost identical. The convenience and usability advantage of the Blackberry is counterbalanced by its inability to be used when not in a cellphone signal area. The single point of failure represented by the RIM network operations center also has shut down the RIM network in ways that recently became a major disruption to users.
Microsoft Windows Mobile cheerfully operates business applications with or without a cell phone connection. That coupled with enterprise goodies like a complete SQL server built into the phone and centralized control of deployment, security, and configuration make it ideal for high end business applications. The iPhone has a way to go before it can add the control of deployment, security, and configuration in a way that will make the IT departments of large enterprises happy.
But Where Does That Leave Nokia and Symbian
My guess is that Nokia recognized that after ten years of development, the Symbian OS still had a long way to go before it could catch up with Microsoft Windows Mobile for the enterprise market. Many of the issues revolving around network security, application security, DRM, configuration control, device control and the like are quite complex, and in many cases require interoperation with enterprise server management systems. These are areas in which Microsoft is strong, but where Nokia and Symbian have little experience.
So is the release of the Symbian OS to open source just the first of Nokia’s moves for smartphone devices? There are many precedents for open source and even closed source systems such as Unix to become diffused and ineffective because there is no guiding hand, no benevolent dictator to keep all those independent developers focused on a common goal.
A Linux Success Story
We have seen many distributions of Linux, and many versions of Unix before that. The incompatibilities of versions and distributions has impeded the development of a broad ecosystem of applications for those systems. In the case of Linux, we are seeing Ubuntu becoming a “standard” or at least the most commonly used version of Linux because of the guiding hand of Mark Shuttleworth.
Perhaps the Symbian Foundation will find a similar guiding hand, that is both knowledgeable and respected in the industry, to pull together the missing parts and incorporate them into a single accepted version of the Symbian platform, ala Shuttleworth and Ubuntu.
The other possibility is that Nokia will have successfully spun off what has become the outdated albatross of the Symbian OS and move on. It can then create or adopt a new proprietary operating system for its line of consumer oriented phones. It is a market in which Nokia has had great success. Should Nokia leave the enterprise business phone market to Microsoft/ RIM, and the high end consumer phones to Apple?
Time will tell.
Charles Wilde, Consulting Software Architect/Developer and Founder of Aton International, Inc., is a mobile/embedded system veteran with 25+ years of successful application development experience. As time permits, he’ll answer your tough questions about mobile app development or Windows Mobile to help you complete a project successfully.
To contact Charles Wilde, go to the Aton International, Inc website
© 2008 Charles A. Wilde All Rights Reserved
Nice review…. I think the symbian is the reason why Brand of Nokia success in mobile market worldwide… so, why should spin off is the great mysteri