Personal Opinion....
One of the huge advantages of Symbian is that it is backed by several major handset vendors. While Linux does have a vast number of developers working on it - they are volunteers, and have no commercial obligations to offer support when it is needed.
What guarantee can you offer the network operator and content providers that a Linux bug will receive the necessary priority from its developers ?
None.
Now that may be acceptable to a programming geek on a backend server platform - but it is not acceptable in the consumer market.
If a mass market handset has a software bug - then it needs to be fixed, and fixed NOW.
If the handset vendor lacks the ability to compel the volunteer developers to provide a bug fix (because there might be something better on TV that night, or they have all run off to Burning Man for a party), then they run the risk of damaging their reputation and market share.
The cost of that damage could easily outstrip the cost of licensing an OS that is backed up with commercial SLA's and service agreements.
For that reason, I personally believe that for the consumer market - it is far safer to stick to using OS's that are backed by commercial service agreements and leave the geeky OS's to the smartphones where the users are more familiar with the flakyness (?) of complicated operating systems and are more forgiving when their handset crashes (after all, their PC probably crashes more often!).
>> Dear Group members,
>> These days many cell phone manufacturers are shifting their focus to
>> embedded linux, which is easy to customize as per the requirement and is
>> royalty free. What benefit symbian can provide to the OEMs or to normal
>> user
>> over the linux. These days, T Engine is also coming up in Japanese market
>> with solid foundation and backing of approx 500 companies worldwide with
>> proper support body. Can anyone envisage use of this platform in the cell
>> phone market in near future ? I wonder if some of the cell phone OEM
>> started working on this !! any say ??
>> Best regards,
>> Vinay Tiwari
>> This mail was sent to address ian.mansfield@amplefuture.com
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Received on Tue Sep 14 11:46:00 2004