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Symbian deal will open up mobile platform market

Competition heats up in the open mobile platform arena

By Brad Reed and John Cox, Network World, 06/26/08

The global battle to control the smarts in your smartphone escalated this week when some of the combatants redeployed their forces in two big moves.

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First, Nokia announced this week that it had agreed to purchase Symbian and open source some of the code in the widely used Symbian operating system for mobile phones. Nokia’s partners in the original Symbian joint venture, including Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and now AT&T and Samsung, are launching a foundation to unite all of the current platforms based on the Symbian universe, including the S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) mobile platforms.

Second, the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum will cease operations by July, folding its work and its membership into the LiMo (Linux Mobile) Foundation. The intent, says LiPS General Manager Bill Weinberg, is to accelerate development of unified open source platform for mobile phones.

These two actions have highlighted the differences and similarities among the major contenders for software running on a billion mobile phones: Symbian, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, a growing mobile Linux movement, but also the upstart Google-led Android project and two wild cards: the Apple iPhone, and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry.

LiMo’s work is similar to that of the Android project, under the aegis of the Open Handset Alliance, unveiled last year. Android, too, is creating a Linux-based software stack for mobile devices. Many analysts said the Symbian open source effort was a direct shot across Android’s bow.

Click to see: A chart of open-source mobile platform players

“There is no question that this is a direct challenge to Android and its open-source roots,” says Jack Gold, the founder and principal analyst for J. Gold Associates. “Given that a number of platform companies who are founders of the Symbian Foundation are also part of Google’s Android program, it will be interesting to see if the commitment to Android remains as firm as when Android was first announced.”

Mobile Linux consolidates

While consolidation is perhaps inevitable, there is plenty of room for more than one consolidated Linux project to make headway in the mobile phone market, experts said.