Post on 09-Feb-2022
Copyright © 2007 Symbian Software Ltd. Page: 1
Introduction to Symbian Research
David Roberts, Liz Laffan
Copyright © 2007 Symbian Software Ltd. Page: 2
At the heart of the smartphone market• Symbian is an independent for-profit company whose
mission is to establish Symbian OS as the world standard for mobile digital systems, primarily for use in cellular telecoms.
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about us
Shareholders
Siemens8.4%
Nokia47.9%
Panasonic10.5%
SonyEricsson
13.1%
Ericsson15.6%
Samsung4.5%
Licensees
Nokia
Panasonic
SonyEricsson
LenovoSamsung
Fujitsu
Sharp
Mitsubishi
LGElectronics
Arima
Motorola
BenQ
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The Symbian Product
User Interfacese.g. UIQ, MOAP, S60, Series 80
Applications Suite, UI implementation
Hardware
UI framework
HW adaptation
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55 million Symbian smartphones shipped in 2007
Quarterly phone sales
2000 2001 20032002 2004 2005 2006
20.7mQ3 07
165 million cumulative units shipped at the end of Q3072007
Uni
ts s
hipp
ed (m
illion
s)
34.0m 51.7m
0
4
8
12
16
20 34.6m
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Mass-market inflection point
0 10 20 30 40 50H1
2007
glob
al u
nit s
hipm
ents
(mill
ions
)
At the current rate of innovation and proliferation, the open OSsegment will surpass the 1 billion cumulative sell-through mark in 2010. At this time, smartphones will comprise over 20% of all handset volumes. John Jackson, Yankee Group
PSPs
iPods
laptops
smartphones
Source: IDC, Apple, Display Search, Canalys, Gartner
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• Electronic organiser• Interactive manipulation
of local data• Battery life• Memory constrained• Instant-on• Fast task-switching• Graphical screen
(overlapping windows)• RAM persisted
application state• PC Connectivity
1984 1996
PDA
• Phone as the most important application
• Smartphone as “Phone Plus…”
• Smartphone as “simply great phone”
• Device start-up• Cellular baseband
abstraction• Flash persisted state• IP connectivity and
networking
2007
Smartphone
2015…Converged Mobile
Computer
The evolution of the mobile OS
• All-IP wireless broadband and multiple bearer management
• Real-time networking• Broadcasting and positioning• Multimedia (creation,
consumption, communication)• Graphics and multimedia
hardware acceleration• Large fast persistent storage• Content protection/rights
management• Energy & thermal constraints• Frequent new requirements
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Symbian Research ‘Themes’• Future technologies that could impact the underlying OS of a converged mobile
computing device … OS kernel improvements (e.g.)
Memory allocationSchedulingDevice driver modelIPC
… resilience… security, … performance, … power management, … graphics/multimedia, … Internet technologies (inc. scripting), … Development tools
• New uses for mobile technology… Health, Home and Leisure, Environment, Cultural
• Making Symbian OS more accessible… To developers… To academia… To general users
• Identifying ‘predictable surprises’ and potentially disruptive technologies
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Symbian Academy overview
Academic Research
Academic Teaching
CommercialResearch
• Provide support for academics in collaboration with Symbian R&D
• Provide FREE support for academic individuals conducting Symbian based research; technical support, training, books, tools
• Provide FREE teaching support for lecturers; course materials, technical support, training, books, tools
Support institutions in teaching Symbian development
Foster innovation by supporting research activities
Create a framework for commercial collaboration
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Symbian offers developers choice of programming models and environments
• Broad and deep application development
• Enable choice for different developer skills and solutions
• Improve productivity• Native Symbian OS C++
is the most efficient, robust and powerful solution for mobile platforms
Ease of development
Pow
er a
nd p
erfo
rman
ce
Symbian OS C++Standard C
Java
Python
Ruby
Perl
OPL
Widgets
FlashLite
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Symbian – Research Licence Project
• What is Research Licence Project… Concept – new for Symbian… Duration – recently started… we have a lot to learn… Progress – Feasibility stage… Plans – coming together
• Current relationship with Academia… Symbian Academy
Symbian Academy
Symbian Sponsored Phd/Interns
Symbian membership of existing Research Project
Symbian part-sponsorship Research Project
Symbian funding of specific applied Research Project
Symbian licensing Example source code, Tools, Hardware
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Why engage with Academia?• We don’t have all the best brains
… We need new ideas and experts … We want to get the best Engineers and Researchers working on
Symbian OS… We want to grow University interest in Symbian specific
technologies
• Increase awareness in Symbian OS… Recruitment and R&D mindshare… Research… Interest (versus MS, Linux and others)
• New technology and competitive knowledge acquisition
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Proposed Engagement with Academia• Collaboration can take many forms
… Applied ResearchSymbian OS – core components
… General ResearchOn and around Symbian OS
• Your ideas?… We have limited resources.. … So we need to make the right decisions early and
prove the value of Research
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Investigations to date• What are our Customers and Partners doing re:
Research… We should try to learn what we can from them
• Where are the best Universities for us to work with?… Where are the top Technology Universities in the world… Other Universities with similar technology interests
• What are the most appropriate Technologies/Areas that we should apply our Research resources on?
… Limited Resources
• Commercial and IP (Intellectual property) – Best Practice in University/Industry collaborations
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Challenges along the way• Culture
… Research concept is relatively new for Symbian• Strategy
… Still being formulated… But mindful of the wider Industry – and ever
increasing entrants to the Market… Importance of engagement with Academia
• Value … We need to show the value of Research to the wider
Organisation (but not always easy to measure)
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Contact us• Symbian – General Research Queries
… David.Roberts@Symbian.com• Symbian Research Licence Project
… liz.laffan1@symbian.com• Symbian Academy
… academy@symbian.com… http://developer.symbian.com/main/academy/
• Graduate Recruitment… graduates@symbian.com… http://www.symbian.com/about/careers/graduate%20program/