This week sees a big step forward in Symbian’s relationship with China Mobile (more as the week goes on). We’re beginning with an intro to Symbian’s man in China David Chun who talked to us about developer opportunities in China. I began by asking David to tell us something of his own background.

Any questions you may want to ask DAVID, pictured below, please use the comments.

David Chun (DC)
I was born and raised in Hong Kong where I spent my childhood and teenage days. During that time, Hong Kong gradually transformed from a manufacturing based economy to service oriented economy, especially in the IT, banking and hospitality industries. Being the junction where western and eastern culture met, Hong Kong has the unique privilege of enjoying from the world best business culture and practices, latest technology and advanced services. I am lucky to be exposed to such environment that has constant new ideas, and innovations; not to mention the latest trend and products ( eg electronic gadgets) from the IT and electronics industries.

Where were you educated?
DC
I completed my junior and senior secondary school in Hong Kong in a British Catholic school before heading to Canada to pursue my university studies. I spent 4 yrs in University of Calgary and earned my Bachelor degree in Electronics Engineering before going back to Hong Kong to start my career.

After moving back to Hong Kong, I started my career in the IT industry with IBM and Bank of America, and then gradually moving forward to the network industry with SWIFT. Most of my jobs have been regional in nature which enabled me to travel widely to work and interact with different nationalities across Asia Pacific, from up North of Korea to down south of Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.

After 8 years in Singapore, I was offered another unique opportunity to move to Beijing, capital of China to kick start the S60 smartphone licensing business for Nokia covering the Greater China region (China, Taiwan and Hong Kong). It was a complete new business operation, concepts and breakthrough in the industry then and you can imagine the enormous difficulties faced both internally and externally.

What brought you to Symbian Foundation?
DC
Whilst managing the S60 business for the past 8 yrs, we witnessed the increasing importance and priority of a mobile software platform in the industry, the market growth potentials of smartphones and the dynamic changes in the whole mobile industry. We see many emerging players from the internet world, bringing in new ideas, innovations and different business models. This proves this market has entered a tipping point and potentials are unlimited.

The technological competitiveness, openness and transparent governance of the foundation are the key differentiators versus other platform suppliers. I am excited to join this software movement to fulfill my dream of really seeing users can enjoy a meaningful mobile life.

You’ve been intimately involved in working with China Mobile for Symbian Foundation, can you remind us where that all began and what the objectives are?
DC
Being the no. 1 operator in the world, China Mobile has tremendous influence in the whole ecosystem in the China region, as well as the world. For the foundation to be successful in China, it becomes apparent that very powerful alliances and ecosystem are needed to drive this movement together. China Mobile with its influential position in the largest mobile market is unarguably our first priority. On the other hand, with the opening up of 3G services and increased competition, China Mobile also reckons the importance of software platform to the overall growth in data services.

Our objective is very simple, which is to work closely with China Mobile and leverage each others strength to bring more and better Symbian devices, services and applications, a strong ecosystem to China and to the world.

How do you see the core OS developer and apps developer arenas in China? Can you provide us with some insights there and explain its importance to Symbian Foundation?
DC
Strongly supported by the government, software is one of the key growing industries and universities in China have produced a great pool of talented software professionals in China. China has the largest number of mobile subscribers and mobile internet users. Eying such big market potential, a lot of entrepreneurs started to develop applications and services and the first they need is to choose a platform that is robust, technologically advanced and very importantly open as basis of their development.

Generally speaking, there are more apps developers in China than core OS developers for the very simple reason that in the past because of IPR matters, not too many mobile software platform providers offer source code to China. A lot of interests Symbian core OS development were expressed but unfortunately only very few subsidiaries of overseas software houses have granted access to Symbian source code. This has highly limited the OS choices for such developers and because of such Linux (especially in the IT areas) has been the dominant open platform. But on the other hand, the fragmentation in mobile Linux platform has also created issues for such software houses or local device manufactures creating technical and management difficulties.

What is the competitive environment like in China in mobile devices?
DC
Sales volume of mobile devices in China reached 161 million units in 2008. ( CCID consulting, Dec 08).

China has become the world’s major manufacturing power house for all kinds of goods which also include mobile devices. When the legislator and technology entry barriers to provide mobile devices are lowered, very small and medium sized mobile device design houses mushroomed. The competition is intense and there are easily over 400+ different models of mobile devices offered in the market by local and international mobile device manufacturers. Out of the top 10 players ( both GSM + CDMA devices), 5 of them are local Chinese manufacturers.