OS v9 includes numerous features intended to keep pace with the evolving requirements of mobile operators and end users. These include enhancements to the multimedia framework, device management, expanded enterprise application support and a more sophisticated security model for enabling m-commerce (mobile commerce) and digital rights.

However, the new OS iteration marks a break in application compatibility with previous versions of the platform, in an effort to keep track with industry developments and to extract greater performance from the underlying hardware. The first handsets based on the platform are expected to reach the market in the second half of 2005.

Symbian vice president of communications Peter Bancroft told ComputerWire said that attracting handset vendors to use Symbian OS in for their mid-range offerings was now the true battleground for the company’s efforts to continue its expansion. Not its long-perceived bugbear, Microsoft.

Symbian has pretty good market share but it’s a pretty small market, said Bancroft. Microsoft is not where we see our competition today. The competition is that middle region of the market [where proprietary OSs dominate]. A lot of handset manufacturers want to move from proprietary OSs. They’re finding it harder to meet operator requirements for security, media, m-commerce [etc]. An open OS can help them achieve that.

The bottom line is how [as technology providers] are we going to help the industry make money out of 3G? This release should help that happen.

OS v9 includes an extensive list of new features designed to help tip the handset manufacturers argument away from proprietary platform sand towards true smart phone platforms, while also boosting its appeal to end users.

Among its multimedia enhancements, Symbian OS v9 now supports numerous different screen sizes and orientations, Bluetooth stereo headsets, multi-megapixel digital cameras, support for the latest MPEG media formats and OMA digital rights management among others. These include enhanced 3D graphics support and the ability to drag and drop files from desktop PC to phone using USB.

The upgraded OMA (Open Mobile Alliance, a key mobile industry standards body)-compliant device management framework provides for over the air access to a user’s handset allowing new services and applications to be deployed quickly. Symbian said this will benefit both mobile operators and IT managers.

Operators want to be able to deploy new services overnight, said Bancroft. [And] one of the things that stops the rollout of any phones in the field is the ability to manage them in the field.

Enterprises are further catered for through a number of new features, among them enhanced filtering and sorting of IMAP email and the ability to accept meeting invitations from PIM applications such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook. Symbian OS v9 has also seemingly adopted Sun Microsystems’ own implementation of mobile Java (J2ME) as its default Java runtime, although Bancroft was unable to confirm this before ComputerWire went to press.

OS v9’s expanded security model takes in m-commerce and DRM improvements but also aims to protect users from malware by ensuring that applications receive specific permission to use phone capabilities. Bancroft said the user interface framework of OS v9 has also changed to make it easier to deploy different language variations.

The downside of these changes, said Bancroft, is a distinct break in binary compatibility between applications designed for OS v9 and previous iterations of the Symbian platform. However, the upside for developers is the ability to extract greater performance from the underlying hardware.

[OS v9] applications will not be compatible with previous versions. There’s a binary break but the same code compatibility. The changes particularly suit the new compilers [for ARM chips]. They should increase performance of computationally heavy code [such as cryptography and games] by around 30%.

To support the release of OSv9, Symbian is developing an integrated development environment for the platform based on the open source Eclipse environment. These will be available free of charge in the second half of 2005.

Symbian will continue to charge licensees $7.25 for the first two million units and $5 per unit thereafter.