SYMBEOSE: EU and major European corporations invest in Symbian

SYMBEOSE: Symbian the Embedded Operation System for Europe is a new initiative led by the EU and a number of major European corporations such as Nokia, ST-Ericsson and a host of others, including academic organisations with the major objective of improving the Symbian OS in order to take it above and beyond it’s current iteration and into new devices and use cases. Among these new cases are embedded systems and cloud computing.

A few of the objectives mentioned in the press release include Asymmetrical Multi-Processing for the differential use of available processors to better conserve system resources and power consumption. Such a change could see Symbian running on SOC’s like Marvell’s ARMADA 628 while barely sipping battery power. (Symbian already supports Symmetrical Multiprocessing ),  Advanced image processing and video acceleration standards (HDR video? ) and improved developer tools. Part of the motivation for this initiative may stem from the fact that Symbian is the only real competitor in the smartphone space to Android, Windows Phone 7 and iOS. It’s also the only one of these major players that has any origins in the EU. Even more significant is the fact that Symbian and Symbian-related activities account for the employment of ~20,000 people across the EU.

As such, these organisations have come together to support the development of the Symbian OS to the tune of 22 million Euros. This “new” initiative is not that significant in terms of the future direction of Symbian OS in the sense that it’s not a replacement or a new direction but the creation of a stronger community of communication, R&D and ideas.

More information can be found in the press release and an initiative summary here

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Tags: EU, SYMBEOSE

Category: 3rd edition, 5th Edition, Nokia, Press Release, Qt, Symbian