Recently, TDG announced that it expects Symbian Series to be number three in the handset market by 2010. The top places would be taken up by Microsoft and-um-an undefined form of Linux. Immediately, all kinds of Symbian people began to shriek about how this was impossible. I personally believe that this is entirely possible for Series 60.
Most “smartphone” users dont even realize what IOS their phone runs on. Symbian Series 60 got big because the old proprietary operation systems used by various handset manufacturers didnt quite make the jumpo to support the features one demands from new handsets(for example, compare a Siemens SX1 and one of the latest Siemens RTOS incarnations). Manufacturers use Symbian for one simple reason: it saves their coder gangs time.
Now, imagine what would happen if there would be a free Linux derivate that was as easy to adapt as Series 60, could do everything S60 did, and um as already said was free?
What would hold manufacturers in the Symbian camp? The regular user will not note any difference, he wont really care either as his ringtoines and images work on both boxen. The loosers would be the technicians(as always): those who bought/developed Series 60 apps and now need to port them…
Related posts:
Content, RSS
Twitter
Let’s assume that users do not care which OS they use, that all they care about is that the device “does what they want”. Symbian has its lead because of Nokia and SonyEricsson devices (mostly Nokia). Either Nokia would have to go Linux/WinMob or some other company would have to replace Nokia as the number one manufacturer. For Linux this would mean that there would be a good usability layer for the phone(s).
(The fact that Linux is free really doesn’t factor into this equation – the cost of the OS is a very insignificant part of the total device cost.)
Hi Tom,
I fully agree to you about how Nokia is the biggest handset maker-and indeed, the numbers TDG gives seem very steep.
But they serve to show a point imho…
About device cost. You definitely are right for nice, highend smartphones-but lets think of budget ‘dumb’phones that still need an OS for a second…
Best regards and thanks for talking back
Tam Hanna