[LINK] Symbian (Nokia) and Android

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

The end of Symbian: Nokia ships last handset with the mobile OS

Two years ago, Symbian was still the #1 mobile operating system. What 
happened?

By Christopher Null, (PC World (US online)) 14th June, 2013
<http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/464962/end_symbian_nokia_ships_last_hands
et_mobile_os/>


This week, Finnish smartphone creator Nokia announced that it had shipped 
its final handset running the Symbian operating system. As the last company 
in the world building phones using the Symbian OS, Nokia's withdrawal from 
the platform means Symbian is now completely defunct.

Symbian's fall from dominance is a tale about which books can (and should) 
be written. 

Its origins date to the '80s, but as of 1998, Symbian's existence was 
formalized when an old PDA company, Psion, changed its name to Symbian and 
took funding from the major phone manufacturers at the time, including 
Ericsson and Motorola, to become the official caretaker of the rising 
mobile OS.

But Nokia has always been Symbian's biggest supporter. The company produced 
millions of phones running the OS, and the two have always had close ties. 
Together they dominated the cell phone market throughout the early 2000s; 
in fact, Symbian remained the top-selling smartphone OS worldwide until 
late 2010.

That abrupt reversal of fortune was due to a couple of factors: First, the 
rise of Android and iOS as the dominant phone OSes, sought-after by 
consumers dropping simplistic handsets in favor of smartphones. Second, 
Nokia's fall from grace (for much the same reason), along with its fateful 
2011 decision to jump into bed with Microsoft and the Windows Phone OS. At 
that point, the only remaining Symbian backer (and the main contributor to 
the Symbian code base) said goodbye to the OS, and the writing was on the 
wall for what would happen next.

Today, Symbian is actually maintained by Accenture, a management consulting 
company, to which Nokia outsourced development (and shipped off thousands 
of employees) in 2011. Accenture is supposed to maintain the OS through 
2016.

So, what killed Symbian? Complexity, according to Nokia. In reports, the 
company blamed Symbian's difficult and unfriendly code structure for the 
extended time it takes for a phone using that OS to be developed. BGR 
quotes a Nokia spokesperson complaining that a typical Symbian handset 
required 22 months of development time, compared to less than a year with 
Windows Phone. In today's environment, when markets are made and lost in a 
matter of weeks, that just won't fly.

For businesses with large deployments of Symbian smartphones, well, there's 
probably little need to fret. First, there's no question you've seen this 
day coming for at least a few years, and chances are you've long since 
figured out a successor to standardize on. For those stragglers, that deal 
with Accenture means you'll likely get security updates and other fixes for 
the next three years--that's plenty of time to decide whether you want to 
jump to Android, iOS, Windows Phone, or--dare we suggest it--BlackBerry. 

That said, support agreements tend to be fluid, especially with a product 
like Symbian that is now effectively off the market. While there's no sign 
that Symbian support activities are likely to shut down in the near future, 
it might be a good idea to accelerate any mobile migration plans just in 
case.

---------------------

2. Software Helps Symbian (Nokia) or Windows Mobile Users to Migrate to
   Android

By Mikael Ricknäs, IDG News Service Jan 13, 2011
Ref: <http://www.techhive.com/article/216653/article.html>

http://www.migratetoandroid.com

SPB Software has released a migration tool that should make it easier for 
consumers to move from Symbian or Windows Mobile to Android-based 
smartphones and tablets, the company said on Wednesday.

The tool copies text messages, contacts, call history and bookmarks, and 
moves them to the new phone. It can be used to transfer data from 
smartphones based on Symbian S60 3rd edition and up, as well as Windows 
Mobile 5 and later. The target device must be running Android version 2.1 
or later.

The actual migration can be done in two ways: either using a memory card or 
an online service set up by SPB. When the latter is used the data is 
encrypted and deleted from the server completely after 12 hours, SPB said. 
The data is also protected by a PIN code.

On SPB's migration web site, users are first asked which devices they want 
to migrate to and from. A "store application" is then downloaded and 
installed on the old phone. The application asks the user to pick a 
migration method, and the data is copied. The user is then asked to start 
the migration tool on their Android-based smartphone or tablet, and either 
insert the memory card or enter the access code that was generated when the 
data was saved from the old phone. The data should then be restored to the 
new phone.

The SPB Migration Tool is available for US$9.95 on Android Market.
--

Cheers,
Stephen