Posted on 06/24/2008 9:54:19 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Symbian's decision to make its source code freely available tips the scales in favor of open-source software in smartphones and could make it harder for Microsoft, and even other open-source platforms like Google's Android and Linux, to compete.
On Tuesday, companies including Nokia, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, AT&T, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics and Vodafone announced that they will work together to make the Symbian OS open source. They will offer it under a royalty-free license to members of a new nonprofit group called the Symbian Foundation.
Symbian is used in about 60 percent of the world's smartphones, which means that open-source software will soon drive the majority of those devices. The proprietary model behind mobile operating systems from Microsoft, Research In Motion and Apple, then, will for the first time be in the minority.
Symbian will become the biggest, but not the only, open-source game in town. Others include the LiMo Foundation, which is working on a mobile Linux-based operating system, and Google's Android, also an open Linux-based OS.
While those projects have been in the works for some time, the Symbian effort could have an advantage because of the decade of growth and development behind it. "It is nearly always easier to start from something you know and change it (Symbian), then to start from scratch (Android)," wrote Jack Gold, analyst with J. Gold Associates, in a commentary about the announcement.
Mary McDowell, Nokia's chief development officer, agreed. "If you look at the assets being contributed to the [Symbian] Foundation, we're talking about a platform with 200 million users, 10 years of development, support from multiple shipping vendors and operators ready today," she said. "As you've seen with some of the new entrants, that's sometimes a hard thing."
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
fyi
Here’s hoping Google’s Android falls on its ass.
Can Nokia's Symbian Foundation Nuke Google Android, Others?
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Nokia's announcement that it is buying out the remaining shares of Symbian that it doesn't already own and that it's forming a group to create an open source mobile platform centered around the Symbian operating system has mobility experts calling it a worthy rival for the delay-plagued open source device platform being developed by Google Android.
According to Jack Gold, principal and founder of J. Gold Associates, a Northborough, Mass.-based mobility consulting firm, Nokia's Symbian Foundation takes a big swipe at Google Android and its Open Handset Alliance, which earlier this week came under fire for reportedly suffering a series of setbacks that could cause delayed releases of Google Android-based devices by several months. Google has since said that its Android plans remain on schedule.
"This is a direct challenge to Google's Android initiative, although somewhat belated," Gold wrote in his analysis of the Symbian Foundation. "I expect this to provide considerable tabulations in the market, although there are a number of steps that need to take place before this transition is completed."
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