Well, on Tuesday and Wednesday I attended the Symbian Smartphone Show which, while not being the largest show I've seen, did have quite a few very impressive partners show they latest offerings.
Of course you had the big boys there, such Goliath's as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung, but also the S60 Forum was there, UIQ.
Overall I expected to be impressed with Nokia, Sony Ericsson was strong as well... the surprises were both Samsung and Motorola who both showed their new handsets based on Symbian OS (with Motorola using UIQ who they just acquired a majority stake in). It's good to see these companies agree on a standard OS allowing developers to create some truly wonderful applications expanding the mobile market. I have nothing against Palm, Windows Mobile or even Blackberry for that matter, but this was the Symbian Smartphone Show and I do believe that from what I have seen so far, the Symbian platform does offer the most flexibility, powerful functions and open developer base of all these systems.
I went around, talked to people and made new friends. I can see that the mobile market is well, and expending... things are now really starting to get interesting.
The obvious major thing I noticed at the show was the move by two very large mobile phone companies (Samsung and Motorola) to the Symbian OS (finally). This makes me think that LG might be the next company to make the move, but for now... I'm just happy that these companies are finally realizing the advantages of using the same OS both from a cost point of view as well as support (and I mean development from outside none-employee developers).
There were also many companies showing various solution that run Symbian based phones. Obviously that number will grow as more and more companies put the OS into their mobile phones. I really feel this is going to be great for the mobile phone market and finally allow it to grow in a way we've been waiting for.
Now I can't wait for next years show, which I suspect will be MUCH bigger. I see Symbian reaching a major turning point now that so many players are onboard and becoming the major mobile OS moving forward. Question is, how will future versions of Symbian handle the multimedia needs of new devices... or new input methods (such as the new push for touch screen) will remain to be seen. But I have faith that Symbian will work very closely with the large vendors to make sure their OS is properly implemented and supported. The mobile revolution is upon us! :-)
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