Symbian sets schedule for OS road map
The Symbian Foundation committed itself to an aggressive operating release schedule Friday, promising a new version of the open-source OS every six months for the next several years.
Symbian is the world's most widely used smartphone operating system, but it has been losing ground to rivals like Apple, Research in Motion, and Microsoft in recent months. Last year Nokia, formerly Symbian's largest shareholder, decided to revive its growth by unifying the software and releasing it under an open-source license as part of a foundation of companies.
That plan is rounding into shape, according to Symbian's David Wood. The first unified release created under the Foundation, known as Symbian^2, is expected to be "functionally complete" by the middle of this year and "hardened" (debugged) by the end of the year, meaning that devices bearing the new software could start to appear as the year closes.
Symbian is setting an aggressive schedule for making improvments to the Symbian OS.
(Credit: Symbian)Symbian^3 is scheduled to reach functional completion around the same time, with a hardened version on tap for the middle of 2010. That means Symbian and its partners plan to make frequent updates to software, which could make it much easier to react to changing trends in how people use smartphones.
Symbian developers will start by unifying development behind the S60 user interface, relieving Symbian developers from having to choose between three distinct user interfaces. But the group is going to have to come up with something that tops--or at least matches--some of the newer projects to hit the scene, such as Palm's webOS, as well as something that captures the imagination of the public.
Moving quickly is good, moving smartly is better.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
- by tonisfeathers March 28, 2009 4:08 PM PDT
- I CARE!!! THAT'S WHO!!
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(8 Comments)I have had a Nokia smartphone using Symbian for years. It is wonderful, but the battery is finally dying and I WILL have another Nokia. It will be nice if AT&T subsidizes it...if not, I will get it unlocked. I am considering the N97 (fantastic features!) which is due out soon; but I wonder if I can hold out until early 2010 to see what this Symbian Foundation comes up with, especially since it appears AT&T will probably support it by then. Maybe I'll buy a cheap unlocked Nokia temporarily...or maybe a battery on e-bay...
The point is there are no better phones anywhere than the Nokia smartphones based on the Symbian operating system. The most important part of this is Nokia. Their bar phones have the best antennas in the business. I have proven this in side-by-side comparisons with several friends' i-Phones and Razors (also on AT&T.)
You also can't kill these phones. I have drop-kicked mine across pavement and down stairs so many times it looks like crap and several keys are held on with tape; but (other than ever decreasing battery life) the phone works as wonderfully as it did straight out of the box!!
NOKIA ROCKS!! And so does the writer of this article, since this is exactly the information I wanted and exactly when I wanted it!