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 1. INTRODUCTION The Smartphone operating system Symbian OS is produced by the software development and licensing company Symbian Ltd. Symbian Ltd was established in June 1998 and is headquartered in Southwark in the Uk . Small devices come in many shapes and sizes, each addressing distinct target markets that have different requirements. The market segment we are interested in is that of the mobile phone. The primary requirement of this market segment is that all products are great phones. This segment spans voice-centric phones with information capability to infor mat ion-c entr ic devi ces wit h voic e cap abil ity. The se adva nced mob ile phone s integrate fully-featured personal digital assistant (PDA) capabilities with those of a traditional mobile phone in a single unit. There are seeral critical factors for the need of operating systems in this market. It is important to look at the mobile phone market in isolation. It has specific needs that make it unlike markets for PCs or fixed domestic appliance s. Scaling down a PC operating system, or bolting communicatio n capabilities onto a small and basic operating system, results in too many fundamental compromises. Symbian believe s that the mobile phone market has five key characteristics that make it unique, and result in the need for a specifically designed operating system: Mobile phones are both small and mobile. Mobile phones are ubiquitous - they target a mass-market of consumer, Enterprise and professional users. Mobile phones are occasionally connected - they can be used when connected to the wireless phone network, locall y to other devices, or on their own. Manufacturers need to differentiate their products in order to innovate and Compete in a fast-evolving market. the platform has to be open to enable independent technology and software Vendors to develop third-party applications, technologies and services. 1

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1. INTRODUCTION

The Smartphone operating system Symbian OS is produced by the software

development and licensing company Symbian Ltd. Symbian Ltd was established in

June 1998 and is headquartered in Southwark in the Uk .

Small devices come in many shapes and sizes, each addressing distinct target markets

that have different requirements. The market segment we are interested in is that of the

mobile phone. The primary requirement of this market segment is that all products are

great phones. This segment spans voice-centric phones with information capability to

information-centric devices with voice capability. These advanced mobile phones

integrate fully-featured personal digital assistant (PDA) capabilities with those of a

traditional mobile phone in a single unit. There are seeral critical factors for the need of operating systems in this market. It is important to look at the mobile phone market in

isolation. It has specific needs that make it unlike markets for PCs or fixed domestic

appliances. Scaling down a PC operating system, or bolting communication capabilities

onto a small and basic operating system, results in too many fundamental compromises.

Symbian believes that the mobile phone market has five key characteristics that make it

unique, and result in the need for a specifically designed operating system:

Mobile phones are both small and mobile.

Mobile phones are ubiquitous - they target a mass-market of consumer,

Enterprise and professional users.

Mobile phones are occasionally connected - they can be used when connected to

the wireless phone network, locally to other devices, or on their own.

Manufacturers need to differentiate their products in order to innovate and

Compete in a fast-evolving market.

the platform has to be open to enable independent technology and software

Vendors to develop third-party applications, technologies and services.

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1.1 Research introduction

Our goal is to research Symbian as complete as we possibly can in a certain

amount of time and by doing so we will cover certain points. In our research we will

have a brief summary of Symbian’s background. We will have the development behindthis innovative operating system, his capabilities, security, performance and so on in

mind. We will research the leading OS in the “smart mobile device” market; we will

 present a complete research about the future possibilities, the expectations and

development, always having the other operative systems competing in the same market

and the negative repercussions that Symbian OS is already facing.

One of our first points of interest will be the platform itself. We will research points like

hardware, operating systems, connectivity, security, performance and eventually future possibilities. We will learn more about the hardware support and how the connectivity

is also the essential definition of “IP”.

 Next software development itself will be approached in our research. The development

requirements, the IDE and Tools and the programming language are the key points

here.

As we all should know the native language of the Symbian OS is C++, there for, our 

research will pass through the programming languages that can be used on Symbian.

Eventually we will have the overall evaluation, the advantages and limitations will be

one of the last points we will need to talk about, such as the fact that Symbian OS is not

open source software yet, although Nokia has decided to put its hard‐earned into the

open source movement. Although Symbian has quite an amount of disadvantages and

limitations compared to other operating systems, it also has a lot of advantages too, it’s

still the most popular platform smartphone, it still has the best smartphone features and

a large global development community.

1.2 Symbian’s introduction

The smartphone operating system Symbian OS is produced by the software

developer and licensing company Symbian Ltd. Symbian Ltd was established in June

1998 and has its headquarters in Southwark, UK, and the current CEO is Nigel Clifford.

Symbian was previously owned by Nokia, Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, Panasonic and

Samsung, on the 24th of June 2008 however Nokia announced it would acquire

Symbian Ltd. Now, on this day, Nokia is the one and only owner of Symbian.

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Symbian OS offers a high‐level of integration with communication and personal

information management (PIM) functionality. As a smarthphone operating system,

Symbian, can provide many applications and services such as; navigation, games,

music playback, associated libraries, etc. Symbian was designed for mobile devicesfrom its earliest incarnation as EPOC32 in the Psion Series 5.

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2. LITERATURE SURVEY

2.1. SYMBIAN HISTORY

Symbian OS started life as EPOC - the operating system used for many years in

Psion handheld devices. When Symbian was formed in 1998, Psion contributed EPOC

into the group. EPOC was renamed Symbian OS and has been progressively updated,

incorporating both voice and data telephony technologies of ever greater sophistication

with every product release.

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2.2. THE COMPANY

Headquartered in London, Symbian Ltd. is owned by Ericsson, Nokia,

Panasonic, Psion, Siemens and Sony-Ericsson.

2.3. CUSTOMERSSymbian’s customers include all of its shareholders, but any company is free to

license the product - Symbian OS is open to all on equal terms. So far, in addition to the

shareholders, Sony, Sanyo, Kenwood and Fujitsu have all taken licenses.

2.4. BASIC PRINCIPLES

The cornerstone of Symbian’s modus operandi is to use open – agreed -

standards wherever possible. Symbian is focused squarely on one part of the value

chain - providing the base operating system for mobile internet devices. This enables

manufacturers, networks and application developers to work together on a common

 platform.

3. SYMBIAN OS

By setting the standard for wireless value computing and telephony, Symbian

 brings together the wireless value chain. Symbian OS drives standards for the

interoperation of data-enabled mobile phones with mobile networks, content

applications and services:

 

.

S60 3rd Edition is the version of the venerable Symbian mobile OS found in a variety of smart

 phones, not only from Nokia including its new N96) but also LG and Samsung. Designed for 

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devices without a touch screen, S60 3rd Edition makes you wade through lots of menus;

the BlackBerry OS deals with the lack of touch much more intelligently.

S60's interface dates from the days when even the smartest phones sported only

a numeric keypad and a few other buttons, and it tends to make you shuffle through

menus one laborious item at a time. (The BlackBerry OS does a much better job of 

making non-touch-screen devices fast and efficient.)It's pretty old-fashioned by today's

standards, with blocky fonts and retro icons.

The programs vary from phone to phone. The N96 I tried includes reasonably

comprehensive suite of apps, and judged purely on available features, they’re

respectable; the browser, for instance, has a zoom-in/zoom-out interface that's

theoretically similar to the one in I phone OS's Safari. But the clunky interface leaves

them feeling less powerful than the apps on any other phone I tried for this article

3.1 Symbian OS is characterised by:

• Integrated multimode mobile telephony – Symbian OS integrates the power of 

computing with mobile telephony, bringing advanced data services to the mass

market

• Open application environment – Symbian OS enables mobile phones to be a

 platform for deployment of applications and services (programs and content)

developed in a wide range of languages and content formats

• Open standards and interoperability – With a flexible and modular 

implementation, Symbian OS provides a core set of application programming

interfaces (APIs) and technologies that is shared by all Symbian OS phones.

Key industry standards are supported

• Multi-tasking – Symbian OS is based on a micro kernel architecture and

implements full multi-tasking and threading. System services such as telephony,

networking middleware and application engines all run in their own processes

• Fully Object-oriented and component based – The operating system has been

designed from the ground up with mobile devices in mind, using advanced OO

techniques, leading to a flexible component based architecture

• Flexible user interface design – By enabling flexible graphical user interface

design on Symbian OS, Symbian is fostering innovation and is able to offer 

choice to manufacturers, carriers, enterprises and end-users. Using the same

core operating system in different designs also eases application porting for 

third party developers .

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3.2 A Platform For Wireless Services

Symbian delivers an advanced, open, standard operating system to its licensees.

Symbian OS is flexible and scalable enough to be used in the variety of mobile phones

needed to meet a wide range of user requirements. Symbian OS supports complexrequirements of network protocols worldwide and enables a broad, international

community.

Development requirements

The right SDK 

S60

UIQ

MOAP

The IDE-tool of your choice

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IDE and Tools

What is IDE ?

An IDE is a software application that allows the computer programmer to

develop software for a certain platform. An IDE normally has a: source editor, compiler 

and/or interpreter and debugger.

Integrated Development Environment or also known as integrated design environment

or integrated debugging environment.

Which IDE ?

Carbide C++

CodeWarrior 

Visual C++

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 programming language

Symbian OS offers a choice of programming languages to the developer. Symbian

OS is written in C++ , and this is therefore regarded as its primary programming

language.

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Java 2nd the most important programing language on Symbian OS.

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Others programing languages which you can use on Symbian;

JavaSript, Assembler,WMLScript,C# , Visual Basic, OPL and so on…

3.3 Providing Wireless ServicesOpen standards ensure global network interoperability, allowing mobile phones

users to communicate with anyone, anyway, at anytime. The compelling advanced data

services that operators can provide on Symbian OS phones will help minimize churn

and maximize revenue.

Which evolution in the various versions?

Symbian OS 6.0 and 6.1 (also called ER6 ): Bluetooth was added for 

exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices. (2002)

Symbian OS 7.0 and 7.0s: This version added EDGE support and IPV6. (2003)

What is the EDGE? (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution)

 Symbian OS 8.0: There are not great evolution has shared some API’s to support 3G.

Symbian OS 9.1: Change of version 1.2 for the Bluetooth has version 2.0

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where the difference is the introduction of an Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) for 

faster data transfer.

Symbian OS 9.3: The WIFI 802.11 and the HSDPA (High Speed Downlink 

Packet Access) appear on Symbian OS.

Symbian Os 9.5: This last version includes native-support for mobile digital television

 broadcasts in DVB-H and ISDB-T formats and also location services.

Security

The Symbian security model can be broken down into three main modules:

1. Trusted Computing Base (TCB)

Kernel, file system and software installer.

2. Data Caging

Protects executables and data files of applications.

3. Capabilities

Define what the application can and cannot do.

Capabilities:

Four types of capabilites:

- Open to all

- Granted by the user at installation time

- Granted through Symbian Signed

- Granted by the manufacturer 

Signing an application

- Open Signed

- Express Signed

- Certified Signing ( Symbian Signed )

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Future possibilities

The leading mobile OS

According to research firm The Diffusion Group, Symbian's still maintains the

 prominent position as the most used mobile OS, is still the most popular smartphone

 platform.

Followed by Linux and then Microsoft, Symbian had 51% market share of the mobile

OS market at the end of 2005, down from 56% in 2004, Linux Came in second at 23%,

which was double its 2004 share of 11.3%. Microsoft came in third upping its 2004

market share of 12.6% to 17%.

Symbian OS is still the “leading figure” in the smartphones market and according to

Gartner Symbian’s market share is still the majority with a trend to decline, Gartner 

 blames I phone and Blackberry.

Although, expects Symbian to maintain its leading and says the Nokia‐owned OS

accounted 47,1% of the sector’s total sales in 4Q08.

Apple continues to redefine the definitions of what a mobile phone operating system is.

Symbian remains by far the most popular OS on the market.

 New research from Gartner shows that for the fourth quarter of 2008 Symbian based

smartphones accounted for 47.1% of the sector’s total sales, with 17.9m handsets sold.

BlackBerry‐owning RIM was next in line with 19.5% followed by Microsoft

Windows Mobile at 12.4 % Apple trailed with a 10.7% market share and Linux 8,4%.

When the fact that Apple is a single device vendor is considered, however, the numbers

 become all the more impressive for Apple – particularly considering that the numbers

represent a 111.6 per cent year ‐on‐year hike. Nokia, in contrast, suffered a 21.6%

annual drop.

Symbian OS is still the “leading figure” in the smartphones market and according to

Gartner Symbian’s market share is still the majority with a trend to decline.

Symbian - open source software platform

The Symbian Foundation is a non‐ profit foundation, that came into existence when

 Nokia acquired Symbian Ltd. in its entirety, and with other partners announced on June

24, 2008 by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung

Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone, to be established to

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"provide royalty‐free open platform and accelerate innovation" with the intent to unite

Symbian OS, S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform.

 Nokia’s buying the rest of Symbian that it doesn’t already own, and will then create the

Symbian Foundation, in collaboration with a number of other companies, and makeSymbian royalty‐free and open‐source .

Symbian will be available royalty‐free. Anybody that wants to use it in handsets, or 

have access to the complete code, will just have to join the Symbian Foundation for 

$1500 a year. That essentially erases Android’s price advantage, and could lead to a raft

of Symbian‐ based devices for the mid‐ and low‐tier from OEM vendors.

This should significantly enhance the ability of the Symbian platform to support custom

UIs. It will be a key area of competition for mobile Operative Systems, and the ability

for manufacturers to create their own UI enhancements will be crucial.

“Perhaps it’s something that can change in future — making it easier for people to

create custom UIs on top of Symbian, rather than having to license one of the existing

ones.”

The Symbian OS has essentially become free, and this is a smart move on Nokia’s part

as it stands to gain significantly from the further spread of Symbian and S60. It’s a

significant answer to Android, and a good response to the iPhone as it should allow for 

a lot of innovation in the UI.

The device manufacturers in the Symbian Foundation will instead look to differentiate

on hardware design, software customization and service layers. Nokia is already

anticipating this with Ovi as are Microsoft and Google with their respective service

suites. Other handset manufacturers will be following in their footsteps.

However the Symbian Foundation can also be seen as a response to the various

mobile software platform groupings such as LiMo* and the Open Handset Alliance

(Google's Android). Both of these groupings were offering open source, royalty free

software platforms to handset manufacturers. By offering a royalty‐free and open

source platform, the Symbian Foundation negates the key advantage of LiMo and

Android. Android and LiMo had gained a lot of attention and some traction, but now

face more of a struggle to establish themselves against the incumbent Symbian

Foundation.

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 Nokia’s buying the rest of Symbian that it doesn’t already own, and will then create the

Symbian Foundation, in collaboration with a number of other companies, and make

Symbian royalty-free and open-source.

Implications to the other OS

The Symbian Foundation stirs up the future of the open mobile platform space. It does

seem fair to draw the conclusion that the Symbian Foundation puts the Symbian

 platform in a stronger position and this will negatively affect the other players.

3.4 Developing Wireless Services

Software developers are able, for the first time, to build applications and

services for a global mass market of advanced, open, programmable, mobile phones. A

set of standard application programming interfaces (APIs) across all Symbian OS

 phones and the advanced computing and communication capabilities of Symbian OS,

enable development of advanced services.

3.5 Symbian Os: Architecture

Symbian OS architecture is designed to meet a number of requirements. It must be hardware independent so it can be used on a variety of phone types, it must be

extendable so it can cope with future developments, and it must be open to all to

develop for.

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3.5.1 ARCHITECTURE DESIGN

Core - Symbian OS core is common to all devices, i.e. kernel, file server, memory

management and device drivers. Above this core, components can be added or removed

depending on the product requirements.

System Layer - The system layer provides communication and computing services

such as TCP/IP, IMAP4, SMS and database management.

Application Engines - Above the System Layer sits the Application Engines, enabling

software developers (be they either employed by the phone manufacturer or 

independent) to create user interface to data.

User Interface Software - USI can be made or licensed by manufacturers.

Applications - Applications are slotted in above the user interface.

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3.6 Symbian Os: Fundamental Requirements

Computer Hardware Requirements: (minimum)

CPU: 1.2GHz processor, x86 architecture

Monitor: 1024 x 768-pixel screen, 16-bit color Memory: 512MB

Hard drive: 200 MB of free disk space

Telephone Hardware Requirements:

A Symbian-able smartphone is needed, not every phone can run Symbian as

OS.

There are some fundamental requirements which are very much essential for an OS

for mobile phones.

1) It must work on standalone portable devices.

2) It must work on different sorts of devices.

3) It must be future proof.

4) It must be open to all to license on fair and equal terms.

5) It must be open to all to develop applications - again with a level playing field

for all.

6) It must be based on open standards.

Perhaps the most important requirement is to work on a standalone device. Symbian

OS is fundamentally designed for mobile phones - with highly advanced features - but

they must still function primarily as mobile phones. This means that expectations are

already set - for a user to consider buying Symbian OS based phones they must

outperform the user’s current model in some areas and be at least equal in all others.

The performance benchmark for Symbian OS is not the PC or portable computing

devices but the phones that around one billion people already have in their pockets.

3.6.1 Features Of Symbian Os

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There are many features that make Symbian OS ideal for mobile devices. Some

of these are briefly explained below.

Operating system designed from scratch for mobile platforms

mobile phones are both small and mobile

mobile phones are ubiquitous – they target a mass-market of consumer, enterprise and

 professional users

mobile phones are occasionally connected – they can be used when connected to the

wireless phone network, locally to other devices, or on their own

manufacturers need to differentiate their products in order to innovate and compete in a

fast-evolving market

the platform has to be open to enable independent technology and software vendors to

develop third-party applications, technologies and services

Best fitted for mobile market

Great market share

3.6.2. Client-Server Architecture

The power of the client-server framework is widely acknowledged in the

software community. In Symbian OS, clients are programs that have user interfaces,

and servers are programs that can only be accessed via a well defined interface from

other programs. The role of a client is to serve the user, while servers ensure timely

response to all the clients while controlling the access to the resources of the actual

system. Additionally, in practice, one server will often have many extra servers relying

on the original server.

3.6.3. Event Management

Event management has long been considered core strength of Symbian OS -

reflecting the fact that Symbian OS was designed from the start to have event based

time sharing in a single thread. Rather than more conventional methods of having multi

threaded applications, Symbian OS enables the developer to think in terms of 

interactions and behaviors as the main artifacts. Enabling this shift from procedural to

interactive designs have been one of the main challenges of modern software

engineering, and this is one reason why Symbian OS has earned its reputation for 

advanced design.

3.6.4 Object Oriented Design

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Because Symbian OS has an object oriented design, it is easy to configure for 

different sorts of hardware, and being component based, it allows manufacturers to add

or remove components. This is crucial in enabling manufacturers to make devices that

 best suit their customers’ needs. This flexibility extends even to the user interface -

again allowing a variety of different device designs to work from the same operating

system. For Symbian itself, the design allows new technology to be slotted into an

already stable platform. This will provide a stable base as the telecommunications

industry moves from 2G to 2.5G to 3G to 4G, with the further introduction of new

technologies such as Sync, Bluetooth, and Multimedia Messaging amongst many. The

 picture will grow ever more complicated, especially when technologies are used in

combination, but Symbian OS is ready!. For application developers, this separation of 

components allows them to program far richer applications - getting into the middle of 

the operating system.

3.6.5 Power Management

Symbian OS users are used to the performance of mobile phones - and so

demand similar performance in terms of weight and operating times when they adopt

new devices. Power management is built into the kernel of Symbian OS and is designed

to make efficient use of the processors and peripherals and so minimize power usage.

When peripherals are not being used they are switched off by the system. This lowers

 battery consumption, prolonging usage and allows for smaller batteries.

This meets the requirement to work on standalone portable devices, enabling

manufacturers to make phones that capture the optimum combination of size and

weight for their target market.

3.6.6 Robust And Dependable

Symbian OS users will have experienced the performance levels achieved in

this area by mobile phones. Devices should not lose user data, crash or require

rebooting.

Symbian achieves this in two ways:

1) Each process runs in a protected address space, thus it is not possible for one

application to overwrite another’s address space.

2) The kernel also runs in a protected address space, so that a bug in one

application cannot overwrite the kernel’s stack or heap.

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The client-server architecture of Symbian OS allows applications to exchange data

without compromising overall system integrity. This meets the requirement to work on

standalone portable devices, even though Symbian devices offer greatly enhanced

functionality over standard mobile phones.

3.6.7 Memory Management

For standalone portable devices, memory management is important. The need to

minimize weight, device size and cost means the amount of memory available on a

Symbian OS device is often quite limited. Symbian OS always assumes that the

memory available is limited, and minimizes consumption at every turn. Consequently,

less memory is actually required by the system. Also having less memory helps to keep

down power consumption.

3.6.8 Full Multitasking

Symbian OS runs each application as a separate process, allowing multiple

applications to run concurrently. For instance, if a user is checking the calendar, and

receives a call, the system must allow the user to switch between applications

instantaneously. Equally, should the phone call result in an appointment, the user must

 be able to check the calendar - and still maintain the phone call. As phones become

more data enabled, this ability will become ever more important.

Symbian and its licensees aim to create a mass market for advanced open

mobile phones. To deliver products that satisfy mobile phone users, an operating

system must be engineered to take into account key functional demands of advanced

communications on 2.5G and 3G networks.

To fit into the limited amount of memory a mobile phone may have, the

operating system must be compact. However, it must still provide a rich set of 

functionality. What is needed to power a mobile phone is not a mini-operating system

 but a different operating system - one that is tailored. Symbian is dedicated to mobile

 phones and Symbian OS has been designed to meet the sophisticated requirements of 

the mobile phone market that mini-operating systems can’t. They simply run out of 

steam the five key points - small mobile devices, mass-market, intermittent wireless

connectivity, diversity of products and an open platform for independent software

developers - are the premises on which Symbian OS was designed and developed. This

makes it distinct from any desktop, workstation or server operating system. This also

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makes Symbian OS different from embedded operating systems, or any of its

competitors, which weren’t designed with all these key points in mind.

Symbian is committed to open standards. Symbian OS has a POSIX-compliant

interface and a Sun-approved JVM, and the company is actively working with emerging

standards, such as J2ME, Bluetooth, MMS, Sync, IPv6 and WCDMA. As well as its

own developer support organization, books, papers and courses, Symbian delivers a

global network of third-party competency and training centers - the Symbian

Competence Centers and Symbian Training Centers. These are specifically directed at

enabling other organizations and developers to take part in this new economy. Symbian

has announced and implemented a strategy that will see Symbian OS running on many

advanced open mobile phones. Products launched, such as the Sony Ericsson P800

Smartphone, the Nokia 9200 Communicator series and the NTT DoComo Fujitsu

2102V [2], show the diversity of mobile phones that can be created with Symbian OS.

Other Symbian OS licensees include BenQ Motorola, Panasonic, Samsung, Send and

Siemens. Over the next year, we can look forward to an even wider range of mobile

 phones.

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3.7 Purpose Of Symbian

This describes the key characteristics required of an operating system designed

for mobile phones and explains why Symbian OS is the best-in-class mobile operating

system.

3.7.1 Small And Mobile, But Always Available

Mobile phones are both small and, by definition, mobile. This creates high user expectations. For instance, if you have your agenda on a phone that you also use to

make calls and exchange data, you expect to be able to carry it with you at all times and

to be instantly available whenever you want to use it. Fulfilling these expectations

makes considerable demands on power management. The device needs to be responsive

in all situations and cannot afford to go through a long boot sequence when it is turned

on. In fact, the device should never be powered down completely since it needs to

activate timed alarms or handle incoming calls.At the same time, a mobile phone must provide many hours of operation on a

single charge or set of batteries. Meeting these contradictory requirements can only be

done if the whole operating system is designed for efficiency.

3.7.2 Handling Occasional Connectivity

Accessing remote data, sending email or synchronizing calendars requires some

type of connection. Mobility constraints generally make a wireless connection

 preferable - whether wide area (using wireless telephony) or personal area (such as

infrared or Bluetooth). Wireless connectivity is patchy, caused by different protocols

around the world, fade-outs while moving and incomplete coverage –especially in

remote areas, in some buildings or while airborne.

3.7.3 Product Diversity

There is an apparent contradiction between software developers who want to

develop for just one popular platform and manufacturers who each want to have a range

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of distinctive and innovative products. The circle can be squared by separating the user 

interface from the core operating system. Advanced mobile phones or “Smartphone’s”

will come in all sorts of shapes - from traditional designs resembling today’s mobile

 phones with main input via the phone keypad, to a tablet form factor operated with a

stylus, to phones with larger screens and small keyboards.

3.7.4 Open Platform

An operating system for the mass-market must be open for third-party

development - by independent software vendors, enterprise IT departments, network 

operators and Symbian OS licensees. In turn, this implies a manageable learning curve,

standard languages such as C++ and Java, along with SDKs, tools, documentation,

 books, technical support and training. Symbian OS has a rich set of APIs for 

independent software developers, partners and licensees to write their applications.

3.7.5 Commercial Benefits

The widespread establishment of Symbian OS will bring significant commercial

 benefits, both direct and indirect.

3.7.6 Operators:

1) Operators will benefit from having a wide pool of interoperable devices, built

on open standards. They will be able to select from a wide range of terminal and

infrastructure manufacturers with a rich set of interoperable solutions.

2) In terms of value that operators can add, applications and content can all be

made more cost effectively supplied - given the common OS shared across

 phones.

3.7.7 Indirect Benefits For The Whole Industry

1) The above benefits assume that the number of users stays constant. In

establishing Symbian OS, Nokia and the other industry players believe that

there will be a Metcalfe effect - whereby the value of a network is the square of 

the number of users. As users proliferate, they will attract more, attracting even

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more users and consequently, more application developers, and content. This

will benefit the whole industry.

2) Symbian OS is the key to creation of this virtuous circle.

4. CONCLUSION

Symbian OS is a robust multi-tasking operating system, designed specifically

for real-world wireless environments and the constraints of mobile phones (including

limited amount of memory). Symbian OS is natively IP-based, with fully integrated

communications and messaging. It supports all the leading industry standards that will

 be essential for this generation of data-enabled mobile phones. Symbian OS enables a

large community of developers. The open platform allows the installation of third party

software to further enhance the platform.

In manufactures point of view :

Symbian is a strong operating system, if you look at the current Symbian devices on the

market we will see that Symbian has a pretty strong position as we’ve previously

shown. The devices which run Symbian OS on it have proven to be during and

Symbian on its own has proven his value on the market.

Symbian is one of the oldest and long lasting operating systems on the market and it

always had its manufactures to build devices for it.

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In developers point of view:

Symbian brings its limitations when it comes to development. As earlier explained

you’ll need a different SDK for every device. You will also have a different set of 

“tools” in each SDK this will limit the porting of programs you right for a Symbian

smartphone. It will work on all devices with the same SDK but on others it will give

 problems.

There for the conclusion is that if you would want to develop for Symbian you should

 be very aware of the fact that you will develop with great limitations

5. BIBILOGRAPHY

 

• The Symbian OS Architecture Source Book by Ben Morris

• S60 A Programming Tutorial Guide by Paul Colton & Edward Robert

• www.techrepublic.com • www.developer.symbian.org 

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