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3GSM World Congress 2003 - The Symbian News
by Richard Bloor, February 24, 2003
The 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France, is the main event of the year for vendors, operators, product and service providers working in the GSM space. The event produced a whole host of announcements around the Symbian OS and this week we round up the key news.
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The 3GSM World Congress in Cannes France the event for everyone involved in GSM technology and services. Rather unsurprisingly therefore there were a raft of announcements involving Symbian, their licensees and companies providing ancillary products or services around the platform. This week we pick out some of the highlights.
Perhaps the most visible piece of news was the launch of Siemens SX1 Series 60 smartphone. Due to be released during the first half of this year, some sources more specifically stating June, it has certainly raised some eyebrows with a keypad layout which makes the Nokia 3650, with its circular pad layout, seem positively pedestrian. Placing the number keys down either side of the phone will certainly create considerable debate leading up to the phones launch. One thing however is clear Series 60 smartphone designers are thinking outside the square and recognizing that, with the PIM and phone log features, actually dialing a phone number using the keypad is now something of a rare event. Beyond the keyboard the features of the SX1 are impressive, it sports the first 16-bit color screen on a Series 60 smartphone and its capabilities including videoclip recording, FM radio and MP3 player as well as an MMC card slot. The SX1 also demonstrates the flexibility of the Series 60 interface as it is clear from the device shots that a distinctly Siemens look has been created.
Siemens SX1
From a developer perspective the main news was the joint commitment from Nokia and Sony Ericsson to work on aligning tools for developing Series 60 and UIQ applications along with the creation of a certification program. Exactly what this will mean is not entirely clear as the tools are “under evaluation” according to the press release. Given that Metrowerks CodeWarrior is the only tool currently providing built in support for Symbian OS development it is probably the prime candidate particularly given that Borland have not yet released their tools with Series 60 support. The certification program also raises some interesting questions as the press release notes that “network operators will be able to control application installation”. One hopes that the implementation of this will be done with more care than a similar scheme which raised the ire of developers and users of the Orange SPV when certification practically meant that applications could not be loaded despite several being available. Clearly however as it is the operators who have to provide support, when a smartphone does not do what the user expects, it is not unreasonable to provide them with some element of control.
The second main announcement of interest to developers was from Sony Ericsson and AppForge. AppForge’s tools for developing and running Visual Basic applications on PDAs and smartphones has been available for the Nokia 9210 for some time and an implementation for Series 60 was demonstrated last year. However this announcement sees the Booster, the software component which runs the application, being shipped with a Symbian OS smartphone for the first time. The updated AppForge MobileVB development tool is scheduled to be available 14 March and when Booster becomes available existing P800 user will be able to download it for free, probably from both AppForge and Sony Ericsson’s web sites.
For Symbian the biggest news was that Samsung has joined the roster of shareholders taking a 5% stake in the company. Considering Samsung’s involvement with Microsoft this move was perhaps a little surprising however the commitment to Symbian was further reinforced by Park Sang Jin, vice president of telecommunications at Samsung Electronics, who was reported by ZDNet as saying that Samsung would "try to make it a standard." This now means that all of the top 5 handset manufacturers have a stake in Symbian.
Samsung also launched a system solution for Symbian OS based phones in collaboration with Infineon Technologies. The package, which unsurprisingly promises reduced time to market for phone manufactures, incorporates TapRoot Systems’ telephony software and PacketVideo’s wireless MPEG-4 decoder and encoder solutions, which promises significant improvements in video performance on future smartphones.
Motorola Semiconductors also made a similar announcement regarding support for the Symbian OS in their i.250 and i.300 Innovative Convergence wireless platforms. This is perhaps interesting because these platforms are not new and have already been licensed to BenQ who before 3GSM announced that they had signed a license agreement for Symbian OS and would be developing a UIQ based smartphone. However still no sign of Motorola’s Paragon II Symbian OS based smartphone.
Not to be left out Nokia also announced closer co-operation with Texas Instruments on hardware platforms for Series 60.
Talking of UIQ, a new version 2.1 and a new web site were launched at 3GSM. The changes in UIQ2.1 include support for Java MIDP (v2.0), improved graphical features, as well as in the gaming and sound applications and introduction of Themes, similar to the familiar desktop themes with background wallpapers, color schemes and sounds. The addition of themes has obvious branding possibilities. Perhaps most interesting of the additions is the inclusion of an integrated telephony application, something which has hitherto been the province of the phone manufacturers.
Symbian also announced that Magpie a technology, which was shown as a demonstration last year, is now going to be pushed through to commercial launch with the help of EMCC Software. Magpie allows the very tight delivery of specific data to a Symbian OS smartphone, for example you could have the dates of your favorite pop stars tour automatically loaded into your calendar. This is certainly a technology with considerable promise.
On the licensee front Nokia announced the creation of the Series 60 Product Creation Community and welcomed EMCC, Digia and Teleca as the first participants. Of more immediate interest to Series 60 users was the announcement that Nokia and HP were to collaborate on enabling Series 60 devices to print to HP’s Bluetooth enabled printers. Nokia also demonstrated its co-operation with both IBM and Oracle to enable delivery of enterprise data to its Symbian OS handsets.
We have already mentioned Sony Ericsson but they were also in the news with the agreement to deploy the Opera Small Screen Rendering browser (www.wirelessdevnet.com/symbian/rb_31.html) for the P800. A very impressive solution to the problem of viewing web pages on a small smartphone screen and I’m sure not the last announcement for the deployment of this solution on Symbian OS based smartphones.
Elsewhere several companies were demonstrating technology utilizing the Symbian OS. FastMobile (www.wirelessdevnet.com/symbian/rb_39.html) were showing off their Voice instant messaging application. Meanwhile 3GLAB (www.wirelessdevnet.com/symbian/rb_39.html) carried off the "Best Wireless Application Developer" for their Trigenix customizable interface, the Beta version of which is now available for download to Nokia 7650 smartphones. Content developers are also now able to get a beta release of the TrigBuilder tools.
Ultimately the 3GSM World Congress shows that the Symbian OS is progressing well with a growing licensee base and expanding hardware solutions. Although not as high profile there are also clear indications that the Symbian OS is starting to position itself to make inroads into the Enterprise market. With Cebit and the Symbian Exposium 03 coming up in the next couple of months there are certainly going to be further announcements that will help cement Symbian OS as the leading platform for smartphones.
You will see more in depth coverage of these announcements here over the coming weeks and months.
About the WDN Symbian Editor, Richard Bloor:
Richard Bloor is a freelance writer and editor with 18 years experience in the IT industry as a developer, analyst and latterly Project Manager with a particularly focus on software testing. Richard has been involved with the Symbian OS since 1995 and has been writing about it for the last 3 years.
Richard is also an associate with System Architecture consultancy Equinox of Wellington, New Zealand.
Richard can be reached at symbian@wirelessdevnet.com.
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