David Wood of the Symbian Foundation at its office in Foster City, Calif.
(Credit: Mats Lewan/CNET)Just about everyone knows the iPhone--and perhaps also that it runs on Apple's operating system--though the phone only has about 10 percent market share among smartphones. Far fewer know the name of the most widely used mobile operating system, which holds nearly 50 percent of the market: Symbian.
As recently as 2007, Symbian had 70 percent share. Market share has been lost mainly because of the iPhone with its Mac OS X, and to BlackBerry devices running on RIM's Blackberry operating system.
To find out how Symbian plans to strike back, CNET News met last week with David Wood, "catalyst and futurist" at the Symbian Foundation.
He revealed that the company has no plans for its own app store, but explained how Symbian plans to make it easier for developers to negotiate with several stores, like the Nokia Ovi Store, which got off to a bumpy start last week. On Tuesday, a developer's Web site for the new open-source Symbian went public.
He also explained the influence Nokia is likely to have on the Symbian OS.
But first he made it clear that the U.K.-based company now is growing aggressively, with the expansion happening largely at its Foster City, Calif., office.
"We have 72 employees today and intend to grow to a bit less than 200," he said. "Many will be in the Silicon Valley, in part to tap into the skills here."
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Yahoo Inc.)
Updated on 8/21/08 at 3:54 pm to correct information about the models supported.
Starting Thursday, searching the Web with a Nokia series 60 phone will be a little faster.
Yahoo's mobile team has released a free shortcut for OneSearch, Yahoo's search engine, that will live on your phone's home screen. The OneSearch widget promises to cut your labor two ways; first, by giving you a place to begin a Web search as soon as you turn on the phone and second, by suggesting search terms as soon as you start typing.
The home screen search widget has already been in effect on other mobile platforms, but this add-on software gives it greater prominence than it might otherwise receive.
The convenience of the home screen search bar could also make this OneSearch widget the most effective of Yahoo's latest experiments in pushing its search platform, including last April's launch of OneSearch 2.0, a version that accepts voice search.
Yahoo has its stalwart supporters, but this application's degree of success will depend on just how many Google search-loyalists end up suspending that preference in order to save time with Yahoo's search bar.
Yahoo's OneSearch shortcut will work immediately on all Nokia series 60 phones, including N70, N95, N73, and E65 models, with support for other platforms reportedly coming soon.
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