The days of the pure Symbian applications and content stories seem to be largely over, at least for now. Almost every developer of any size is working with multiple platforms and runtimes. This is creating healthy competition, as companies who have been specializing in a single OS broaden their reach. For example Andrey Scherbakov of Epocware notes they have a major revision of Handy Safe underway, driven in part by the arrival of SpbWallet from Spb Software, who formally developed exclusively for Windows Mobile.

Spb Software's move to multiple platform support comes from a switch from purely a software supplier to services. 'To be able to offer our services through operators it's essential to have support on the broadest range of devices,' explained Fado Ezhov.

For established companies, or those with good venture capital backing, the platform proliferation is not a big issue, at least, as both Paul Moreton from Quickoffice and Andrey Scherbakov from Epocware note, 'as long as the revenue is there'. Paul also notes that, given the investment in Quickoffice was predominantly in the engines underlying the product, porting to multiple platforms make sense as it leverages that core investment. However, for developers whose applications value is in the UI, the multiplatform requirement becomes more expensive.

A potentially serious problem for the mobile industry - or at least the mobile software industry - is the negative affect that the proliferation of platforms and runtimes might have on innovation. Innovation is unlikely to stop, but its breadth may be curtailed as small developers struggle with the challenge of implementing their technology on multiple platforms, ahead of serious revenue streams.

This is certainly one reason why web runtimes and Bondi are generating a lot of interest. For example, Sam Critchley of Gypsii notes that they don't plan to develop a Java language version of the Gypsii location based networking application, but would seriously look at using web runtime when they commonly provide access to camera and GPS. (For Java phones Gypsii are currently looking at WAP services or various embedded solutions.)

It was perhaps timely therefore that Forum Nokia announced the first version of its tools for S60 Web Runtime widget development in Aptana Studio during MWC. All indications are that this is the first of several similar plug-ins for popular web development tools.

All the developers I spoke to made similar comments about Symbian compared to every other platform they work on. Symbian is the only truly open platform - in the sense that all the APIs you know should exist are there - and the implementations are consistent across multiple manufacturers. No other platform yet matches.

However, the lack of a signing process that addresses all Symbian devices causes pain, as does the lack of a unified retail channel. The former problem should be addressed with a unified signing mechanism (and I was told with much cheaper certificates) coming to Symbian Foundation. The retail channel issue is a harder problem.

Despite its innovative approach, powering recommendations through social contacts and location, most developers I spoke to see Ovi Store, announced at the show - as perpetuating the fragmentation in retail channels for Symbian devices. So, while most developers are going to sign up they were not necessarily enthused by the announcement. Nokia has its work cut out in proving that Ovi Store can offer developers the rewards they get at what is now seen as the benchmark, the Apple app store.

However, these problems pale compared to possibly the most serious threat to software developers, the zero cost software model being used by Google to drive advertising impressions. But that is something for another time.