Trade shows are very much about hype, building a sense of enthusiasm in the target audience. However, Symbian continues to do this with an understated quietly confident approach - David Wood made it clear he would not be dancing across the keynote stage. Similarly, Nigel Clifford apologized for the fact that his broken arm had not been the result of participation in some outlandish sport, but rather the result of falling off a bicycle on an English country lane.

However, this restraint worked well in allowing the underlying enthusiasm and ongoing activity to create the Symbian Foundation to speak for itself. For example, this came over strongly from Kevin Gunn, Software Product Manager, Wireless Terminal Business Unit, Texas Instruments. At the first panel discussion, Kevin emphasized the meritocratic nature of the Symbian Foundation, noting that the setup planning was giving voice to those who have something to offer, regardless of their role in Symbian Ltd.

David Wood opened the show by stating that the three most important things to Symbian are "developers, developers, developers". While this may seem an old, if differently stated, battle cry the emphasis is very different as the reality of the Symbian Foundation approaches. In the future "Symbian" won't be creating its own software, it will all be created by members of the Foundation. So every developer will be a third-party, from those working in the core of the OS to those looking to leverage Symbian for the business opportunities it creates.

Much of the discussion, however, had to be premised with a legal statement pointing out that the Symbian Foundation was not yet a certainty, awaiting as it does the necessary regulatory approvals. This highlighted the fact that, in moving to an open source platform, there is much to be resolved. One such area is the third-party software Symbian licenses for inclusion in the OS. Two examples are TapRoot's WiFi stack and Scalado's image processing software. These two companies are taking quite different approaches to the move to open source. Mats Jacobson, of Scalado, points out that the open source software model can include commercial software. Scalado's software will remain closed and commercial as it's the IP in this software that is fundamental to Scalado's business. By contrast, Sean O'Leary, of TapRoot, suggested that his company sees its business proposition as rooted in the skills and expertise of its staff and had not dismissed the idea that their software stack could become part of the open source offering.

Symbian clearly sees the Foundation as creating a best of both world option for companies looking for an operating system for mobile (or possibly any) devices. Currently, the choice for OEMs is free but largely unproven software or proven but commercial software. The Symbian Foundation will create the first option for a free and proven mobile OS. Whether this is enough to make Symbian OS the most widely deployed platform on the planet will be a matter of time and, of course, regulatory approval.