Nokia Takes Control of Symbian

jpatokal writes "CNN reports: Nokia has bought out Psion's share of Symbian, pushing its stake in the mobile phone OS to a dominant 63%. This means rivals like Siemens and Samsung may now pretty much be forced to choose between proprietary Nokia or Microsoft technology. Symbian may be the more open of the two, but GPL it ain't - does Linux now have an edge?" We reported on a rumor to this effect late last year.

Comments

Open != effectiveness

[NecoX]

Why does GPL have anything to do with how good an OS can/could be? Jeebus...

Re:Open != effectiveness

[Chairboy]

Sadly, interest in things being open source is transitioning (my cynical colleagues might say it already has) from being about controlling quality and maintaining code that a corporation might 'sunset' to being more about religion.

Many of todays open source advocates seem to have lost touch with the reasons they originally became attached to the concept. This can only hurt the future success of these projects as more and more people associate this with zealotry instead of technical excellence.

Re:Open != effectiveness

[n()_cHIEFz]

I agree, PalmOS is superior in the handheld market and it's proprietary. OS X is another expample, not everything is open.

I think the point, us nerds would like to be able to hack our phones like we hack on our computer systems. One could do some interesting things with an open phone OS...

Re:Open != effectiveness

[Ami Ganguli]

Um, the idea of controlling quality and maintaining old code isn't what Open Source or Free Software have traditionally been about at all.

The original drivers were:

• The desire to share code (and with GPL-style licenses, the desire to have others return the favour by sharing back)
• "Free as in Freedom"
• Not getting locked-in to proprietary companies
• Doing something useful with software you would have written anyway, but don't want to commercialize

I'm sure there are more, but controlling quality and maintaining abandonware have never been very high on my list and I'm surprised you think they were ever what Open Source was about.

Re:Open != effectiveness

[Manip]

GPL != OpenSource either, things can be open without being GPL. GPL != Freedom.

Re:Open != effectiveness

[October_30th]

Can you think of any reason why a piece of software should *NOT* be free (from the user's point of view)

If I don't pay for it, I have absolutely no right to expect support.

Furthermore, if I pay for software, I know I've contributed to the common economy: I'm keeping someone employed.

Re:Open != effectiveness

[jc42]

think the point, us nerds would like to be able to hack our phones like we hack on our computer systems.

Close, but I'd express it differently.

I don't really want to hack my phone. I want to replace it. What I want to replace it with is a PDA-like gadget that will fit into my pocket, and be able to talk to both the phone system and the wireless Internet. And I want to be able to use it like a computer, i.e., it must be programmable.

An important part of this is the "will fit into my pocket" phrase. Most PDAs flunk this test.

I have in my pocket what looked like a good start a couple of years ago: a Kyocera 6035 "smartphone". It has a lot of problems, though. One is that the web browser works over IP that's PPP over the phone system. It's sloooooow, and you get charged full air time for the connection, even when no packets are being passed. This is far too expensive to use it routinely.

My wife has a new Tungsten, that comes with wi-fi networking built in. But it doesn't do phone calls. And it's too big for my pocket (though it does fit into her purse).

Also, these are both PalmOS. After a couple of years of exploring their development stuff, I find that it's really not worth the effort. Doing even the smallest thing takes forever, because you just can't debug the stuff. The slightest error freezes everything, you have to reboot, and you have no clues as to what went wrong. There's nothing at all like gdb available. And most of the internal working are invisible and undocumented to outsiders like me.

To be credible, I'd want something that I can actually program. This means that the innards should be documented, and there should be places to ask dumb questions. PalmOS doesn't even come close. I haven't tried Symbian, and I do wonder if it's better.

But it's pretty obvious that a pocket-sized linux gadget with both wi-fi and cell-phone hardware would do the job quite nicely. Nothing hidden there, and lots of places to ask dumb questions (and get RTFM answers, for which I can ask "So where's the FM for that?" ;-)

I'm not dogmatic about linux, though. FreeBSD would be nice, too, and OSX would be pretty good (though parts of its innards are blocked by brick walls).

I also wonder about iTron. Is there any way for a US resident (with little Japanese) to get meaningful experience with it?

What about Palm OS?

[Scyber]

Sure its still proprietary, but it is another option.

No, not yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...does Linux now have an edge?"

No, No, No, NO! This has been discussed so many times it is unbelievable. Linux on your handheld is for people who want to run X apps remotely, ssh into their routers/servers etc. It is NOT (yet) for folk who want to simply write e-mail, update a calendar, play games and synchronise with a windows machine. Sorry, but it just isn't ready for this market area yet. Every year we hear how "200x is year of the Linux desktop" and every year we get excuses, lack of support from big vendors and API change problems which make porting apps a nightmare.

What "Linux on a PDA" needs is backing from a big vendor with plenty of cash to back it up. The only way this is going to become a reality in a fast moving sector such as PDAs is to play in the big arena with the giants (Microsoft and Nokia).

Says Symbian

[glesga_kiss]

Symbian may be the more open of the two, but GPL it ain't - does Linux now have an edge?"

Yeah, and follow the link and you see it's Symbians own webpage that says it's the better. Are peoples bullshit detectors broken when it comes to M$ competitors these days?

Re:what about palm?

[Phekko]

if you look at market shares, they don't. Plain and ugly truth: market's pretty much dominated by Symbian and Bill is trying very, VERY hard to get his share, too. Doesn't look good for PalmOS

This *will* help M$

[lonesometrainer]

Siemens, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, et al (see former ownershop smybian) are all ambitious mobile phone companies. They would be completely dependant on Nokia if they exclusively chose Symbian a.k.a. Nokia Series 60/70.

Instead they'll expand their technological portfolio.

Current situation: nearly no M$ smartphones (except some models from motorola), mostly symbian dominated market.

Possible future situation: M$ *and* Symbian phones from Siemens, Samsung, ...

Conclusion: M$ is the lucky winner.

Damn.

Consumers usually choose the phone design...etc

[wongqc]

Having used both types of handset before, I personally feel that the Symbian OS is more user friendly, and better. But ulimately, I believe consumers usually take more into consideration the phone design, weight, stylish factor....than the OS features. As much as I would love to buy a linux phone, it first has to appeal to me in terms of looks and design, and the easy availibility of third party apps.

Microsoft not a competitor to Samsung/Siemens

[blorg]

The problem is that Samsung and Siemens are now essentially being asked to license an OS from, and pay fees to, their largest competitor. As Microsoft just makes software, not the actual phones, it is not seen as a competitor in the same way, and licensing Windows Mobile may not be such a bitter pill to swallow.

Re:Microsoft not a competitor to Samsung/Siemens

[tverbeek]

Samsung and Siemens are now essentially being asked to license an OS from, and pay fees to, their largest competitor.

They are still partial owners of Symbian. And they've been paying these licensing fees to Nokia, Psion, Ericsson, Panasonic, and each other, all along. Financially speaking the only change here is that that Psion's share is now Nokia's. That's signficant to the other licensee/owners, but it's not as if Nokia had just bought Symbian outright. Financially it makes more sense to license the software from a company you co-own than one you don't.

The main thing the other owners have lost here is the ability to (collectively) veto Nokia in the boardroom and determine the direction of development and licensing terms... also signficicant, but again not the same as a buyout.

Note that Motorola already bet on this

[heironymouscoward]

Last year, it was already obvious that Nokia (who controlled the Symbian UI) would become the primary vendor for Symbian itself.

Motorola tried Microsoft, decided they did not like it, and started to build Linux phones.

This is going to be a three way fight between Symbian, Linux, and Microsoft. My guess is that Symbian will win because it is a superb platform and Nokia have timed this move perfectly.

Linux will beat Microsoft because anyone who is unwilling to pay the Nokia license fees for Symbian is unlikely to want to pay Microsoft either.

But this does not really change things for firms like Samsung - they will probably be happy to ue a standardized UI and OS while also developing their Linux platform on the side.

The big loser here is Microsoft, who might have fragmented a Symbian owned by several people, but are unlikely to score a good hit now.

In my experience you are very incorrect

[FreeUser]

Sadly, interest in things being open source is transitioning (my cynical colleagues might say it already has) from being about controlling quality and maintaining code that a corporation might 'sunset' to being more about religion.

In my experience (working in the financial industry), it goes more like: Happily, interest in things being open source is transitioning from being about controlling quality and maintaining code that a corporation might 'sunset' to being more about security from being held hostage by ones vendor.

In other words, businesses are recognizing the concern and need to have the freedom to conduct their business without coercion from outside, i.e. they are recognizing the value of freedom as being of even greater importance than the cooperative, peer-review paradigm that improves quality.

This is an important breakthrough in corporate mentality, and I have seen it spreading rather quickly among the suits of late.

Strategicly, software freedom (particularly at the infrastructure level such as an operating system) is very important to an enterprise: not just from the orphaning of software your comment implies, but from other forms of vendor lock-in and coercion, be it coercive upgrade cycles that disrupt one's business, security patches that sabatoge competitors products one's enterprise may be using (by submarining in incompatible DLLs, for example), and by having a mission critical, proprietary product yanked when one's vendor suddenly becomes one's competitor.

I've seen all of these things happen, and I suspect Siemens et. al. are very cognizant of this as well. These are scenerios that GPLed software does a great job of protecting against, BSD-licensed software protects against to a lesser degree, and proprietary products leave one completely vulnerable to.

There may be very compelling strategic reasons for these companies to switch to a (currently) inferior GPLed product over a proprietary product rather than risk having their mission critical vendor (Nokia today, Microsoft tommorrow) becoming their most ruthless adversary...reasons that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with "religion."

An edge?

[mblase]

does Linux now have an edge?

Only if it's a superior OS in terms of compatability, usability, and cutting-edge features. Please remember that on the whole, consumers don't care which phone is more open from a codebase perspective, only whether it supports the features they want.