China Mobile and AT&T use new Symbian Horizon apps platform
Published: 28 October, 2009
READ MORE: Symbian Foundation | App Store | Symbian
The open source operating systems continue to duke it out for headlines. While today should belong to Android, with Verizon Wireless expected to unveil its Droid line at last, showcasing the latest version of the Google OS, the start of the week focused on Symbian, with the platform's community holding its annual gathering in London.
Having released its open source microkernel ahead of schedule last week, Symbian followed up with the launch of its application store platform, Horizon, at the Symbian Exchange & Exposition (SEE). The framework, which was originally outlined at Mobile World Congress in February, is designed to support content delivery and software stores for multiple vendors and operators.
Like similar initiatives from Qualcomm, Ericsson and others, Horizon provides a standard approach to provisioning, billing and so on, which can then be branded and optimized by the individual partner. Developers can list their apps in the Horizon Directory, processed centrally through the Symbian Signed system, and can then be offered in any of the partner stores. This should reduce the time and cost, for store owners, of getting a strong apps line-up, and increase the target base for programmers.
The Symbian Foundation said five app stores now run on the Horizon system. The latest is China Mobile's Mobile Market, another sign of the world's largest cellco adopting a multi-OS strategy, despite its initial commitment to Android. The other Horizon stores are Nokia's Ovi Store, Samsung's Applications Store, AT&T's Media Mall and Sony Ericsson's PlayNow arena. Many of these players are supporting Symbian alongside other operating systems, including proprietary ones like Samsung SHP, and Horizon aims to make Symbian the easiest OS to incorporate into such storefronts. The carriers, given their strong channels to market, are important additions, with AT&T also getting closer to Symbian in gradual stages.
The Foundation accepts that the Symbian market is currently even more fragmented for developers than Android, with about 25 stores carrying apps based on the OS. Laura Merling, acting head of developer programs at the Foundation, told telecoms.com: "So how do you get enough apps in the store if you're the store owner - and, if you're the developer, do you want to choose one store over another? You want the broadest distribution, so you want to be in all of them. So our goal with the Horizon platform is an app publishing platform. The goal is to minimize the cost to the developer for getting distribution." The body says theses costs can be reduced by 75% for a developer targeting six stores, although there is an inevitable bottleneck in processing applications - only 50 have been certified since the system went live three months ago.
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