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Symbian^3 due next month, WinMo 7 may be way behind

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 13 January, 2010

The Linux operating systems, Android and even Moblin and webOS, took center stage at last week's Consumer Electronics Show, but their main alternatives, Symbian and Windows Mobile, are refusing to stay quiet. The Symbian Foundation will complete its first fully open platform as early as next month, but there is increasing speculation over whether Windows Mobile 7 will appear in time to mount an effective challenge to it, or indeed to the maturing Android.

The Symbian Foundation should finish Symbian^3 next month, with a general release of its successor, Symbian^4, before year end, according to Victor Palau, a member of the Symbian release team, on his blog. The Foundation has a multi-stage release strategy which should see the platform appearing in devices in time for this year's holiday season. The OS will be fully open source around midyear, stimulating the contribution of additional enhancements.

However, the real momentum should build in 2011, especially at main supporter Nokia, which is also upgrading its own software platforms to make the most of the new Symbian experience. Among the majors, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson also plan to support Symbian^3.

According to Palau, version 3 will offer capabilities such as a multipage homescreens and support for HD video and files of over 2Gb in size. Other features that have proved awkward in previous Symbian releases have been addressed, with the promise of a simpler connection dialog plus HDMI support for multimedia and a new plug-in framework.

As quoted in Techworld, Palau says: "So Symbian^3 is progressing nicely, and at the same time Symbian^4 is starting to build up a substantial contribution plan with already 60 package features." The main focus of release 4 will be a full revamp of the user interface environment, support for parallel processing in multicore devices, plus a new camera API for easier development and debugging of camera-related apps. Other innovations will include a new geocoding framework for location services plus APIs and direct support for the Bluetooth UI.

As for Microsoft, Robbie Bach, president of the firm's entertainment and devices division, told an analyst day at CES that the company has a three-pronged strategy to gain more presence in the mobile market. He admitted that WinMo had been too geared to business users and had lost ground to other OSs, but insisted the much delayed release 7 would address many challenges (though not the biggest one, that the mobile OS market is going almost entirely open source).

The main focus will be on integrating WinMo 7 tightly into a broader strategy for cloud services and the 'three screens' (PC, TV and phone). He said: "While I don't think if you looked across the past two years of what we have brought to market that we have executed as well as we would have liked, but I am quite optimistic with the new team we have.... I am certainly confident that we are going to see [Windows Mobile 7] as something that is differentiated and sets the bar forward, not in an evolutionary way from where we are today, but something that looks, feels and acts and performs completely differently."

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