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The WDN Symbian DevZone... connectivity on the Symbian OS & Intuwave
by Richard Bloor, July 29, 2002
Connectivity between Symbian devices and desktop machines has until now relied
on a proprietary protocol called PLP (Psion Link Protocol). This is now being
replaced with a standard IP solution from UK company Intuwave. This week we
look at what this means for connectivity on the Symbian OS.
PC synchronization had long been seen as a significant weakness of the Symbian
solution, having been much criticized by users and reportedly having been a
significant hurdle for licensees. It was probably these two issues which resulted in
Symbian issuing a tender in early 2001 to identify technology to support future PC
connectivity applications. Symbian’s original connectivity solution was based
around a proprietary protocol called PLP (Psion Link Protocol). PLP was first
developed for the forerunner of the Symbian OS, SIBO, which powered the Psion
series 3 machines. The tender sought to outsource the OS and PC code that
provided this functionality. Symbian apparently recognized that PC Connectivity
was not a core area of competency, in fact they had already used 3rd Parties for parts
of the PLP based solution. In addition to Intuwave, companies including TimeIS,
who was an existing supplier of parts of the current synchronization technology, and
Pumatech responded to the Tender.
Intuwave was formed in 1999 with the goal of providing an IP solution for the
delivery of applications to mobile devices. Unlike a number of other companies they
started building applications for wireless from the ground up rather than trying to
squeeze existing desktop and server applications onto mobile devices.
In many ways this mirrors the way Psion and then Symbian developed the Symbian
OS as a targeted small device OS rather than a cut down desktop OS. This similarity
is probably not too surprising as a number of Intuwave's founders had previously
worked for Symbian and a number of their developers are from Symbian and Psion.
From this work emerged a product framework called m-Network which included a
technology called m-Router to link wireless devices to the desktop via IP in the same
way that they connected to IP over the air.
Intuwave won the tender late last year. Key factors in their selection seem to have
included their understanding of the device desktop interface, their in-depth
knowledge of the Symbian OS and a close fit between Intuwave technology and
Symbian's IP strategy.
Intuwave's technical competence was also demonstrated by the fact that they have
helped several companies port their solutions to the Symbian OS including
Pumatech's Intellisync, IBM's MQ Series and Lotus Notes.
The fact that their CTO Mark Melling had also been one of the people instrumental
in initiating the SyncML initiative probably did not hurt either. Although SyncML is
not intrinsically part of the solution it is undoutably a standard which will be used in
future Synchronization strategies by device vendors and operators.
Following the awarding of the tender work was started around the end of last year
to remove the proprietary PLP software. The work included not only changes to the
OS but replacement of the desktop application.
The announcement of these changes was however not made until recently. This was
done (unusually for the IT industry were announcements significantly in advance of
actual product is common) so that it would coincide with product and device roll
out. More specifically the Nokia 7650 and SonyEricsson P800 will both employ the
new technology.
As already mentioned the new solution dovetails into Symbian’s future IP strategy.
It allows applications to operate using the Desktop as an IP conduit in the same way
as they use IP over wireless packet data systems. The obvious benefit for the
developer is that connectivity and synchronization solutions no longer rely on the
device being connected to a desktop. Equally it opens up opportunities for new
applications which interact through IP based services when a device is connected to
a desktop in the same way as it would over the air.
In their new role Intuwave will now be acting as the de-facto suppliers of
PC connectivity technology for Symbian OS. We need to be clear here that Intuwave
are enabling synchronization and not actually supplying software which
synchronizes data on a Symbian device with desktop PIM applications or corporate
databases. Rather Symbian’s Connectivity Partners and Symbian Licensees will
supply these services. It is likely that the Licensees will use technology developed
by Symbian Connectivity Partners, for example Motorola will almost certainly use
Starfish, a wholly owned subsidiary, to provide synchronization for their future
Symbian products.
As previously mentioned Intuwave have also replaced the desktop portion of the
solution. They are now working with both Nokia and SonyEricsson to customize
and differentiate the User Interface and user experience for the branded desktop
products that will provide consumers with PC connectivity. In addition Intuwave
are believed to be working with a number of other licensees around unannounced
and unreleased devices, notably a number of products for the Japanese market.
Another consequence of this move is that, as with the device SDKs, the Connectivity
SDKs are now likely to be shipped via Licensees rather than by Symbian.
Kumi Thiruchelvam Intuwave's Vice President of Global Sales believes the changes
"will make application developers job much easier by integrating over the air
applications with PC connected applications". Synchronization and connectivity
solutions will be create by developing plug-ins that will use standards based APIs
and allow greater portability than existing connectivity solution. However at this
stage the precise details of the changes that will be seen by developers have not been
made public.
As previously mentioned m-Router is one part of Intuwave's m-Network enabling
platform. Kumi sees m-Network as a product which will see the wireless device
becoming "first class IP citizens in their own right". m-Network moves beyond the
limited client server model using multiple node instances within a network to
deliver information.
The m-Network middleware, as explained by Kumi, "targets a rich client device, for
example a Symbian smart phone, which is neither inherently thin or thick, where the
application determines the architecture on the device not the other way round". This
is exemplified by inclusion of the first HTTP web server that runs on Symbian OS.
So web pages can be dynamically generated on a Symbian OS device from local or
remote databases.
Ultimately m-Network shields the developer from the issues that are unique to
wireless applications such as network latency and sporadic disconnects by providing
a reliable asynchronous messaging service.
m-Network complements existing Platform development tools and Intuwave are
currently working on both Java and C++ SDKs. A Java SDK that works in Borland’s
JBuilder and a number of other IDEs is currently in limited Beta. The next
development will probably be a C++ SDK for the Symbian OS with support for the
Windows mobile operating system variants to follow. In addition they are also
exploring additional IDEs which may include Metrowerks CodeWarrior and
AppForge.
You can find out more about m-Router at Intuwave's web site (www.intuwave.com). Expect to see further
coverage of Symbian Connectivity tools in this column in the near future.
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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