I was pleased to attend the Symbian Towel Day event held in Suomenlinna on 25th May and once again the atmosphere was relaxed and the weather sunny and warm. It is nice to see something that was started in 2009 to grow so fast into an active member happening where ideas, visions and achievements are openly discussed.
The year 2009 was the beginning of another significant journey as well. It was the year Ixonos Product Creation Centre was launched and brought another dimension to Ixonos’ service portfolio. PCC is the next-generation smartphone design unit offering full product creation services from hardware to software including system planning, design and integration, product customization, user interface and user experience design. And of course, all parts of the total product creation are offered also as separate services.
That is the reason why the new Symbian Hardware Abstraction Interface (SHAI) architecture in the Symbian platform is especially interesting. SHAI defines a new, consistent hardware interface at the bottom of the Symbian platform software stack which makes the design of adaptation software much easier. It will provide flexibility to product design itself and enables true innovation starting from the hardware platform. SHAI is one of the most important ventures towards a more open Symbian ecosystem and an even more flexible platform.
Another interesting activity in Symbian from the perspective of a product creation service provider is the Wild Ducks project (“build your own hardware device to run Symbian”). The Wild Ducks team is doing great work by documenting, testing and implementing the missing pieces in an effort to port the Symbian platform to open, off-the-shelf hardware. The project provides valuable information to any company interested in Symbian device development. But maybe more importantly, the open community can fully participate and contribute.
Openness is the driving force in Symbian and it is great to follow these ventures – not just for the fun of it but because it offers real value for the member companies.
