We all know that Fujitsu laptops run on Microsoft Windows and PowerBook G4s run on Mac OS. But how many of us can name the operating system which our Nokia/Motorola/Samsung phone runs on?

Stefanie Khaw

Not too long ago, playing ‘Snake’ on your Nokia phone was enough to keep you happy while waiting for the bus. I was quite impressed the other day when I found out that Civilisation™ (one of my favourite computer games during high school) was now available for the Nokia N-Gage QD, a phone built specifically for gamers.

The relentless increase in user requirements for mobile phones has pushed proprietary operating systems adopted by mobile phone manufacturers from ten years ago to their limits.

To accommodate growing needs and upgraded features, some mobile phone manufacturers have adopted a new operating system - Symbian OS. It is an operating system (OS) based on open standards for advanced mobile phones, also popularly known as smartphones. The term ‘open standard’ means that almost anyone can develop software for this operating system. Because of this versatility, anyone can create software applications for Symbian OS; hence the growing number of programs available for use by smartphone users.

Traditional embedded phone operating systems hardly accept any aftermarket software. Think about buying software applications like Microsoft Word for your PC . Similarly with Symbian OS, you’ll be able to buy anything from games to word processing software which will be compatible for use on your phone. These range from ArcSoft PhotoBase Deluxe (a photo editing and sharing program), Navicore Personal (a car navigation system) to EMCC Muppet Symbian Suite (allows users to add Muppet images, sounds and animation to their photos, messages, and phone conversations). By the end of last year, 4,588 third party applications for Symbian OS phones were commercially available.



The birth of Symbian
The conceptual birth of Symbian OS probably took place in early 1998. The world’s leading mobile phone manufacturers held a series of discussions about a brand new operating system for future generations of mobile phones. These meetings concluded that each company would benefit by co-operating in the identification, support and development of a next-generation open standard mobile phone operating system. Symbian Limited was founded in 1998 with the intention to create and license Symbian OS. The company’s major shareholder is Nokia while Ericsson, Panasonic, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson each own smaller portions of the pie.

The first few Symbian OS phones were the Sony Ericsson P800 Smartphone, the Nokia 9200 Series and the Nokia 7650. They are highly differentiated from one another, illustrating the flexibility of Symbian OS in accommodating the ideas of mobile phone manufacturers of how the software should operate in their mobile phones.

Most Symbian phones operate on the Symbian Series 60 OS. Series 60 phones are basically voice-centric phones with information capabilities. On the other hand, Symbian Series 80 and Symbian UIQ phones are information-centric devices with voice capabilities. Series 60 phones are usually more similar to old school phone models while Series 80 and UIQ phones are generally more comparable to personal digital assistants (PDAs).

It was reported last year that one Symbian OS phone was shipped every second. Market researchers have confirmed that Symbian OS is the smartphone OS market leader, accounting for up to 53.2 per cent of the industry. Competitors to the Symbian OS include Windows Mobile, Linux and Palm OS. Windows Mobile and Linux are designed to be somewhat similar to their desktop counterparts while the Palm OS was originally designed for conventional personal digital assistants (PDAs).

I mentioned earlier that Nokia was Symbian Limited’s major shareholder. To be precise, they own 47.9% of the company. It’s no surprise then that most Symbian OS phones are Nokia models. The heavily advertised Nokia N90 and Nokia N70 are examples of Symbian OS phones. Also look out for the Sony Ericsson W950; it’s the latest addition to the phone manufacturer’s Walkman® family.

In a nutshell, all the wonders of new mobile phone technology--surfing the Internet, sending emails, running word processors, creating business presentations, managing photos, watching TV--have all been made possible because of advanced operating systems like Symbian. You’ll never get bored at the bus stop again.