The development of The Smartphone Show, or the Symbian Expo as it has been known as in past years, in many ways reflects the development of Symbian OS. This year's show has many of the ingredients of previous shows, a wide range of exhibitors, developer training, demonstrations, and presentations, but there are also extra dishes and it is served up quite differently.

In previous years the event has been organized by Informa, a company which also manages 3GSM and some one hundred other trade events each year. This year Symbian has engaged Informa more deeply and the result has been many changes in the shows format and content. The biggest change has been the introduction of a Senior Level Strategic Conference, which unlike the show floor, is a charged event.

"This year Symbian wanted to broaden the show," says Mark Burk who is responsible for conference content for Informa Telecoms & Media, Mobile Handsets & Devices Portfolio. "While the show still maintains its traditional content, with a strong set of developer workshop sessions, Symbian wanted to make it more attractive to senior telecoms executives and so we have inaugurated a Senior Level Strategic Conference."

The conference runs over the two days of the show and is designed to appeal to what Mark describes as the "core elements of the handset value chain" by dealing with the hot topics that affect these people.

As a charged event Mark has been careful to balance the content so that it maintains a Symbian focus without sacrificing objective analysis of the issues facing Symbian and the mobile industry generally. "In many ways it is a mistake to be focused only on your own product at a show," says Mark. "By providing a broader analysis this conference, and the show as a whole, will offer greater value to those who are attending. There will be speakers comparing Symbian to other offering and being critical about it, but that is what will make the conference valuable and interesting."

As a result, while many of the usual suspects will be speaking at the conference, such as Rikko Sakaguchi from Sony Ericsson and David Wood from Symbian, there are also names which are not synonymous with Symbian such as David Woodbribge from BT (talking on fixed mobile convergence) and Anders Wasterlid, Chairman, Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP). Some guests will even venture from farther afield, such as Dr Kiyohito Nagata, the head of NTT DoCoMo's product department and Tatsuo Tomita, the President of Fujitsu's Mobile Phones Business Unit. These companies manage to generate significant data revenue in their Japanese home market on Symbian OS devices and should be able to provide some interesting insights for European executives. The topics covered are equally diverse and include enterprise, UI customization, reference designs, device management and security.

Another new feature, and another charged activity, is the Investor Forum. This will provide an opportunity for companies working with Symbian OS to pitch to a range of investors and learn more about the dynamics of the venture capital industry.

The developer training sessions, the final paid element of the show, have a heavy focus on Symbian OS v9. Also of interest to developers will be the free show floor seminars which this year are presented in three streams covering user experience, "core" development and enterprise.

Last year's event attracted 94 exhibiting companies and over 2,800 visitors. This year's show promised to be bigger and better, Informa expect 100 exhibitors and over 3,000 attendees.

The Smartphone Show promises to be a hectic two days. If you are unable to attend SymbianOne will be bringing you all the key announcements, daily show reports and a photo blog from the show floor. Just bookmark our Smartphone Show page to keep in touch with all the action.

For more information on The Smartphone Show and to register visit: www.thesmartphoneshow.com