Richard: Do you see the announcement of the Symbian Foundation as a necessity or inevitability?

Tim: I believe Symbian had to do something. The company was starting to feel pressure from the increasing number of smartphone platforms. At this stage in the development of the mobile OS market everyone was expecting convergence on fewer platforms: Symbian OS and one or two others. Instead we have the exact opposite. As a result Symbian certainly had to do something radical and by going open source they have re-established their position at the heart of the mobile industry.

So while the move was probably reactive, it is very well timed. It will be giving the competition a lot to think about.

Richard: What benefits do you see for your business?

Tim: I expect two main benefits. From a technical perspective, there should be more opportunity for companies like ourselves to contribute directly to the OS, in terms of APIs and tools. From a commercial perspective, there will be an increasing number of companies using Symbian OS, across a wider range of devices, which in turn will drive demand for more interesting applications and the developers to create them.

Mark: I agree with Tim, we will see more customers for Symbian OS software, but also the flexibility offered by an open source approach means we can look at offering subcomponents to help the new licensees differentiate their products, whereas most of our clients are currently looking at vertical applications.

Tim: However, I don't expect it to have an immediate impact. Our work focuses on software for devices that are either in the market or coming to market in the next few months. These projects are continuing as before.

Richard: Do you think the nature of Symbian OS licensees will change or will it simply be more of the same?

Mark: I expect to see a significant change. Currently a manufacturer has to commit to producing devices numbered in the millions to secure a Symbian OS license. With the open source model there should be no such limit. As a result an increasing number of boutique and OEM manufacturers will be looking seriously at Symbian OS.

Tim: This volume requirement has until now forced many small volume manufactures to look at Windows Mobile or Linux. In the case of Windows Mobile they have been able to secure a license to produce just a few thousand niche devices. The open source model will enable application specific devices to be built on Symbian OS.

Richard: As developers how much benefit do you see from an open source Symbian OS?

Tim: The scale of Symbian OS means that having access to the source code gives you an advantage in understanding what is going on, when the documentation or examples don't explain things clearly. Having the OS as a big code example will help every developer.

However, as Platinum Partners we have had access to most of the source code for some time. So from that point of view it probably won't make a huge difference to us.

Mark: Where it will make a difference is in how the OS develops. When the announcement was made a number of our developers said "great now we can get rid of descriptors." I believe there will be a significant push towards implementing many more standard type libraries and the idiosyncratic parts of the Symbian OS will slowly disappear into the background. So I expect to see an acceleration of the Open C/P.I.P.S initiative, which means, in the longer term, there will be a whole new batch of developers starting to work with Symbian OS.

Tim: The Symbian Foundation will create new opportunities for the community to influence the Symbian OS. I don't think it will be a Linux style community with independent developers contributing content and fixes for free. However, we see an opportunity for the Symbian Foundation to be, in many ways, more independent than the company is now. As a result, organizations such as ours will be able to apply more influence over the platform in terms of functionality and the available APIs. While this probably won't impact in the first release, over time this will create a much more competitive platform in terms of how easy it is to build applications and devices.

Richard: How do you see this affecting the new unified UI?

Tim: At this stage it's not entirely clear what the new unified interface will be or at least how developers will program for it. Nokia has said the new UI would be compatible with S60, and being open source it could be possible to extend that with compatibility layers to allow applications using S60, MOAP, or UIQ to all work in the new UI. This is an aspect of the new platform that will become clear over the next year or so.

Mark: The big unknown here is the affect of Nokia's acquisition of Trolltech, which gives Nokia a fourth UI to consider, so the new UI could also take the best from the Series 40, S60, maemo, and Qtopia UIs.

Richard: At the announcement one of the goals stated was to make Symbian OS the most widely implemented computing platform. You have already spoken about the opportunities for a broader range of licensees; do you perhaps see the same with the types of devices?

Tim: I think this is an exciting possibility, but it won't happen immediately. By the time it does it is likely that most computers will be some sort of phone and most phones some sort of computer anyway, so perhaps we won't notice the change.

Mark: One area we could see a change is in embedded devices. Again pricing, based around components, has given Embedded Windows an advantage in this domain. But Symbian OS has advantages given its reliability and stability, so we could easily see it making its way into industrial systems or in-car computers.

Richard: Overall how would you summarize the effect of this announcement?

Mark: I think Symbian is a volcano that is about to erupt. While many have been preoccupied with whether Symbian can beat Microsoft or Linux, they forget that Symbian's biggest competition has been the proprietary mobile phone operating systems, and the biggest of these is Nokia's Series 40. I think the Symbian Foundation and open sourcing the OS has the potential to remove this competition completely and that will be very significant.

Tim: From a technical perspective the biggest impact will be in the standardization of C and C++, which could largely remove the barriers between Symbian OS and other C based platforms. So in the same way as the iPhone platform supports C, C++, and Objective C we could see the same with Symbian OS. This will allow all C developers to become first-class citizens in the Symbian world. It will also make development across multiple mobile platforms much more straightforward, something we are doing a lot of despite our roots in Symbian OS. So, while manufacturers can select the OS to fit their requirements, developers will be able to build application engines for any platform and only have to do platform specific development, if any, for the UI.

However, the biggest benefit the Symbian Foundation will bring is opportunity. There will be many companies trying to figure out how they can take advantage of an open source Symbian OS or will be uncertain how to make the most of the new landscape. Our expertise and knowledge makes us an ideal partner for these companies and we are open to talking with these companies to help them enter the ecosystem and take advantage of the new opportunities.

For more information: www.symsource.com