| The market drive towards advanced mobile services such as multimedia messaging and wireless access to the Internet sets high requirements for the terminals and networks. New devices (and networks) must be able to handle still and moving images, music, allow access to the Internet for messaging and browsing, and provide a diverse set of applications in addition to operating as a mobile phone.
As 2.5G and 3G networks emerge, the focus is turned to the terminal – what kind of capabilities are required by these new services and how can they be fulfilled? This book presents one significant platform for smartphones – devices that are designed to meet the increasing requirements of the new services – Series 60. It is a platform made by Nokia on Symbian OS (Operating System), which in turn is an operating system designed for mobile devices.
Owing to these requirements of the new services, the task of making the software for wireless devices is becoming increasingly complex. As new protocols, communication interfaces, services, and applications are integrated, the required R&D effort grows rapidly. This increases the development cost significantly and sets high demands on interoperability testing. Symbian was formed in 1998 by Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and Psion to provide a common standard and to enable the mass marketing of a new era of wireless devices. Matsushita (better known by its brand name, Panasonic) joined Symbian in 1999, in January 2002 the Sony Ericsson joint venture took a share of Symbian, and, in April 2002, Siemens also joined Symbian as a shareholder (www.symbian.com). |
