Mobile Communication - The Future is Open
I recently attended the Carsonified’s Future of Mobiles Conference in Kensington where, amongst others, there were representatives from SonyEricsson, Google, Symbian, The LiMo Foundation, Purple Labs, Adobe, M Trends, Rummble and Trutap to name but a few.
It became very clear that while my last blog intimated that the future of mobile communications was a “two horse race” between Google Android and LiMo with the latest Open Source Operating Systems, this is not the case.
Along with the new Opensource devices there are also a number of Open systems that are also of great value to developers and consumers.
Symbian:
In June we heard that Nokia is to buy the remaining market share of Symbian. The goal is to form a non-profit Symbian foundation that will manage licensing and be governed by a neutral board. During the early stages the foundation will provide royalty free licensing to all members. They aim to get the framework for this in place as soon as possible. Eventually they will open source it under the Eclipse Licence.. With 60 percent of the Smartphone market, Symbian has been the dominant mobile OS for some time now, and although Nokia has also recently been developing with Linux for non-phone devices, this recent activity will put emphasis on Nokia’s efforts with Symbian development.
David Wood, Co-Founder and Executive VP, Symbian – commented to Jenrick CPI, regarding the future of the Symbian Foundation: “we look forward to Swifter innovation and deeper collaboration”
Developer opportunities:
“What struck me at the conference was that the companies want to, and are proud, to offer something better for the developer community. Open Source Development (OSD) has provided major advances over the last 2 – 3 years. The most prominent of these is the Linux O/S and the web server, Apache. The Open Source model provides the perfect environment for very rapid advances in software development.
The OSD provides key benefits not available to closed source developments. These include:
- Extreme Development ( example: http://www.sourceforge.com),
- Quicker Bug fixes, Internet community based support – due to the ease of viewing/modifying code,
- Security – Open Source makes it more likely that a security flaw will be noticed via third party analysis, exposed and corrected, before being exploited,
- Future path - With all aspects of OSD available to public, no one person, party, company or country controls the software.. or the future of the software”.
Smartphones
With all the hype over the new Open Source Handsets that are being launched. I think it is important that we don’t forget the smart phone and similar devices that are “open platforms”.
Smartphones
Most devices considered smartphones, use an identifiable and open (Blackberry) operating system, with the ability to add applications - in contrast to regular phones which only support sandboxed applications. Smartphone applications may be developed by the manufacturer of the device, by the network operator or by any other third-party software developer, since the operating system is open. Most Smartphones support full featured email capabilities with the functionality of a complete personal organiser, Keyboard, Touch screen, Camera, Navigation software and the ability to read business documents in a variety of formats such as PDF and Microsoft Office, media software for playing music, browsing photos and viewing video clips, internet browsers.
For the user experience Smartphones are very much still of value to us. For example the new Blackberry Bold by RIM. This device delivers email, phone, IM and the Internet. It has an integrated organiser, Camera and Video recorder. The Blackberry bold offers Fast performance, an excellent Multimedia experience, GPS, Wifi and clear and colour rich screen.
Jeff Tupholme comments..
In a question I posed to Jeff Tupholme, Founder of MakeMyShow, regarding his thoughts on the latest trends. Jeff reflected that applications are one area of growth, but also messaging and content must not be forgotten:
“I hope that open source operating systems will encourage or allow better support for prevailing standards such as MMS. In many cases, handsets only support a subset of the GSM standards and unfortunately that subset varies between models and manufacturers. Open standards is often the junior partner to open source, but it’s definitely true that open source projects tend to support standards better than proprietary software”.
In summary..
The questions that have been raised in my mind following the conference and the blog research, surround
- Firstly, the security of Open Source platforms - Although able to review code freely and share knowledge relating to bugs and fixes etc, will there still be security threats to the devices?
- Secondly – Will there be a risk of diluting the brand with so many application options available to the handset?
- And finally – an underlying theme through all the talks was regarding fragmentation of the OS and Browser. The experts seemed to feel there were too many options with Open Source, Linux and Browser and that organisations should be cooperating with others to achieve their goals. Is this a good idea? Or is competition healthy?
Please feel free to contact me with feedback or advice regarding market trends or to discuss how I may help you whether candidate, Client, or fellow enthusiast.”
You can contact Emma Waddington directly on 01932 245 500 or email emma.waddington@jenrickcpi.co.uk
Tags: google android, Limo, open disposure, open source, symbian
