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The WDN Symbian DevZone... Symbian Developer Expo Preview
by Richard Bloor, April 15, 2002
Symbian hold their second European Developer Expo on 23rd and 24th April at
the ExCel center in heart of London's Docklands. Originally delayed from last
November the timing is probably much better with several smartphones using the
Symbian OS available for this showcase event.
The 2nd European Symbian Developer Expo was due to be held last November
but was delayed due to the tragic events of 11 September. With the 3GSM, CeBIT
and CTIA events out of the way it provides the Symbian community the
opportunity to gather, review progress and look forward to what should be a year
of growth.
The venue is the ExCel center on the old wharf of the Royal Victoria Dock in the
heart of London's regenerated docklands. It promises to both inform and
stimulate the attendees with presentations from many of the organizations that
are defining the future of wireless. The event has attracted sponsorship from
major component manufacturers, including Texas Instruments, Intel and
WACOM, smartphone vendors like Nokia and SonyEricsson, network operators
Vodafone and Orange, and technology enablers such as Picsel and Metrowerks.
Developer Expo has four main threads, keynote speeches, briefings, training and
an exhibition.
The keynote speeches will be made by:
- Katsumi Ihara, President of SonyEricsson,
- Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President of Nokia,
- Fernando Gomez, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Europe, the
Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for Motorola's Personal Communications
Sector,
- David Levin the recently appointed Chief Executive of Symbian,
- David Wood Executive Vice President of Symbian's Technical Consultancy
division, and
- Mark Edwards, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Sales at Symbian.
The keynote sessions run in the morning and early afternoon of each day of the
Developer Expo.
The briefings, which are aimed more at a general business audience rather than
purely at developers, run each afternoon and include six main themes:
- Developing for Symbian OS, with Metrowerks, Borland. AppForge, ARM and
Intel
- Technology Showcase, which looks at the range of innovative and powerful
applications which can be hosted on the OS, with Adobe Systems, Purple
Software, Intuwave, ART, Omron, K3 and AppForge
- Mobile Technology - Deployment of New Networking Technologies, with Cisco,
Ericsson and Nokia
- Mobile Services, with Elata, Sun, Real Networks, Mobilitec and PointBase
- Exploring the Multimedia Potential of Symbian OS, with Real Networks,
Beatnik, Emblaze, PacketVideo, Texas Instruments and Picsel Technologies
- Connectivity - enabling the seamless flow of information to and from devices,
with Extended Systems, fusionOne, Starfish and PumaTech
For developers, or others with a more technical interest in the Symbian OS, the
training track has five streams catering for all levels of experience from those new
to the OS through to battle hardened veterans. The streams are:
- The Essentials track which covers subjects pitched at the beginner through to
intermediate developer, mainly concentrating on C++ and includes
presentations covering development strategies for multiple devices, TI's OMAP,
memory management and strings
- The Advanced track, includes subjects such as Porting, networking and
communications
- The Java Track, sponsored rather unsurprisingly by Sun, includes sessions on
games, JNI and optimization
- Nokia are running the next track which encompasses multi device
development, games and enhanced messaging for their 9200 Series and 7650
smartphones
- While SonyEricsson's Smartphone Track includes sessions on the use of the
CodeWarrior tool set and a look at testing tools and techniques that can be
used with the Symbian OS.
On the exhibition floor there will be a wide ranging companies servicing every
aspect of the Symbian platform from hardware componentry, thought developer
tools to service providers.
For software developers the key exhibitors will probably be Borland, Metrowerks
and AppForge. Borland and Metrowerks will be showing their integrated
development environments for both Java and C++. While AppForge are expected
to announce the latest version of their Visual Basic tools and run time
environment for the Nokia 9210.
Developers should however not overlook some of the other technologies such as
TI's OMAP, speech recognition technologies from NeuVoice and ART as well as
Superscapes innovative 3D visualization application.
If you did not know it already then the number of vendors of multimedia
applications attending confirm that this is one of the key technologies for the
smartphone revolution. Real Networks, Emblase, Macromedia, MobileMedia,
Packetvideo and Picsel will all be demonstrating their solutions.
Security is a perennial issue with wireless devices. Certicom, whose movianVPN
is now available for the Nokia 9200 series and F-Secure who have developed virus
protection and encryption protection for on-device files will be showcasing their
products.
The Developer Expo is also clearly a show about more than software and service
development as shown by the number of component manufacturers and
hardware development support organizations exhibiting. Hardware vendors
include Agilent technology, whose wide portfolio of products includes digital
imaging sensors and WACOM whose inductive sensing technology greatly
enhances the concept of the "touch sensitive" screen, are present. Wireless
Telephony Software specialist Atelier is typical of companies that are enabling
hardware development by providing key integration components for smartphones.
Testing requirements are also addressed by TestQuest and 3G Lab, who provide a
complete laboratory 3G testing solution.
Several announcements of new hardware and solutions, including version 7 of
the OS, UIQ and the SonyEricsson P800 at events like 3GSM, CeBIT and CTIA
have preceded the Developer Expo. The currently publicized list of attendees and
exhibitors suggest that that it is unlikely that any new phones will be launched.
Speculation around licensing of Series 60 to Samsung may be put to rest. A
number of companies who have not previously been notable for an association
with Symbian are present however. This includes Tao Group whose Java
technology has been licensed to phone maker Sendo and Zoomon who develop
visual messaging software. So it is likely that there will be a number of
announcements of new applications and services enabled for the Symbian OS.
Overall this year's Developer Expo should be an exciting and stimulating event.
The multiple tracks and exhibition means that even the most eclectic interest
should be well satisfied. While it may be short of significant announcements, and
you never know what Symbian have been hiding up their proverbial sleeve, it
serves to consolidate this year's positive start for the Symbian OS.
The official program and list of exhibitors can be found at http://www.symbian.com/devexpo/index.html
The WirelessDevNet is able to offer readers a discount of £150 off the standard
rate for attending the Symbian Developer Expo 2002. To take advantage of the
special discount rate, simply type in the discount code DVL02/85 when
registering online at www.symbian.com/Developer Expo/registration.html (or
mention the discount code if you register by phone or fax).
About the "WDN Symbian Guy" Richard Bloor:
Richard Bloor has 16 years experience in the IT industry. His earlier
work was largely in design and development of commercial and
manufacturing systems but more recently has focused on
development and test management of government systems.
Richard Bloor is the Mobile Applications champion at System
Architecture consultancy Equinox of Wellington, New Zealand.
Richard can be reached at rbloor@wirelessdevnet.com.
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