DISQUS

Jof Arnold · 1 year ago

Hehe, thanks for the links, James. I look forward to seeing what will happen. Here's some other thoughts too:

One area I definitely don't know about is how they'll distribute the operating system... With ubuntu, it's pretty easy, but this? Are people going to be flashing their phones every week when a new update comes out? Active community projects need a lot of regular updates. Also what is EPL1.0? How tightly tied-down is it? Also, isn't it a bit worrying that only dyed-in-the-wool mobile operators and manufacturers are part of the announcement? Where's the hot new talent? But we're talking years in the future, so who knows anything at this stage... they should have done this a couple of years ago probably... feels like they are in defense mode due to android/apple.

So many questions, and so little time to research a carefully planned answer ;-) Exciting times!

Alfie · 1 year ago

Along with Androids delayed release ( http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/te... ) this is also disturbing news for Google - Symbian has massive market share globally, and going open source trumps Androids main USP.

justindaviesuk · 1 year ago

This is a very good strategic move for Nokia, as it puts then in direct opposition to Google, and they have experience and existing licensees with the manufacturers and carriers. The problem they will have, which is what happened to Sun when they Open Sourced Solaris was the sheer amount of work needed to cleanup all the code before making it public, as well as maintaining the codebase internally with a new way of working.

I doubt we will see any code for quite a while, but once it is released, I am expecting a good community to form very quickly.

Someone in M&A had their Weetabix this week I think!

juliancooling · 1 year ago

This may be what Symbian always needed. It wrong foots Google's Android and they may end up delivering at the same time.

The real challenge is one that is not affected by open sourcing: do they have a development platform with a transparent sales channel for developers to sell to real life purchasers who have an expectation of good quality software that will be paid for with cash. They have an enterprise ready OS and they own a mighty fine hardware range but the cash flow from consumers is not good. Like a lot of developers I think that Symbian is the bees knees. However, I want to develop for a very small number of platforms (i.e., well defined sets of OS, screen, input, connectivity, ubiquitous backend service providers) for customers who can find me.

Google is very good at promoting communities but struggles with quality away from their main offerings and it is strongly associated with 'free'. Nokia's Symbian may will turn out to be a geeky paradise with so many options that the whole development platform is completely fragmented (anyone remember developing for Linux between 1992 and, say, 2000) which is where Symbian went when it abandoned its three fixed platforms: Crystal, Quartz and Perl.

The question I have, is this their plan to conquer the US enterprise market? I don't think this is about the consumer market. Current major Symbian developers are (in my experience) enterprise quality software houses. If this is the underlying plan, it could see off Android as a main stream platform and leave Apple permanently in the consumer space that it knows sooooo well.

AJ · 1 year ago

I may be a bit fick but could someone please explain to me why this is a good thing and why it will make anyone more money?