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The title says it all… Yet again, for the uninitiated, I’m not writing this post to compare Ubuntu with Microsoft Windows Vista. That war is for the desktop. And having seen Ubuntu perform on my laptop which is not anywhere near Vista compatible, I’d still put my bets on Ubuntu…

As I wait for the arrival of the Ubuntu’s latest Fiesty Fawn CD’s, I wanted to write about another massive war thats raging in the mobile world. The war of the OSes.

Mobiles need no introduction. All of us have seen those photos in forwards where we see a guy pushing a wheelcart with vegetables while talking on his mobile. The disparity there lies in the cost. But for the people always on the move, the smartphone is where it is all worth fighting…

In this post, I wish to play the devil’s advocate in pitching two of the worlds most famous mobile Operating Systems against one another… Oh yeah… The Big gun Microsoft Windows Mobile / CE against Symbian!!!

Lets face it, two heavy duty corporations that are pushing the envelope of technology beyond limits. Every day… Every single minute… Nokia is a royal spearhead in terms of mobile technology while I would personally choose to put Microsoft in 2nd place here…

Comparing each of these technologies separately: << Do excuse me if I, in addition to playing the devils advocate act like a devil to microsoft technologies, I’m a Symbian programmer EOD!!! >>

Nokia’s Symbian Operating System: The Series60 series of Nokia devices has been a mega runaway hit since the inception of Symbian in 2001. 110 Million Series60 phones sold as of 2006 december ranging across over 100 models. Nokia’s claims that the Series60 sales is eating into its own Series40 and Series80 sales forcing them to come out with 3 models of non Symbian phones to combat one Series60 device.

Heh, there you go, I said it, not a phone… but a device… A device that lets you check email, listen to audio, record video, take pictures, chat using IM, create and edit office documents, check for weather, do currency conversions on the fly with live financial market data, trade stock, buy movie / train tickets, stream live news, make banking transactions. And guess what, you can call and SMS too!!!

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS: A supposed hit in the big corporates where if you use windows family Servers and buy windows boxes from HP-Compaq by the thousands, the top management gets those bland / office-ey looking HP IPAQ devices. . Hey, I have to give it to you here… Other than with some configuration troubles connecting to Microsoft Exchange servers and Secure Microsoft VPN’s, there isn’t a lot that I’ve seen these devices do… Nevertheless, a platform that has it’s own range of support systems to ensure that it doesnt die down the race, Microsoft has been pushing Windows Mobile really really really hard nowadays…

The OS war:

With Nokia holding 48% of Symbian Corporations share and the rest 53% shared among 13 other OEM’s, I would be fair in my own right if I use Nokia and Symbian interchangeably…

Yeah, so, the war… Thats against Nokia and Microsoft… And so far, the war has been single handedly lead by Nokia with other OEM’s like Sony Ericsson, Motorola, DoCoMo, and others pitching in once a couple of years to pair up… Taking the drill down to the actual OS levels, the war is pretty much on Nokia’s sides now. That too with their Symbian 9.5 based phones coming out.

Microsoft released Windows Mobile 6 quite sometime back, which I effectively do not remember… What I do remember is that Microsoft had been harping bigtime about the 2GB address-space, a 500 MHz processor, 3G, and quite a lot of other features like Microsoft Office enabled, Microsoft Outlook Sync, Microsoft Calendar Sync, Microsoft whatnot and Microsoft what-all.

Motorola had actually brought out a couple of models for getting Windows Mobile into the market… I however, still do not see huge numbers of these devices, even in the motorola and microsoft infested american market with Verizon being their preferred operator charging a swell per month of bandwidth usage these mobiles consume doing their microsofty thingies…

Nokia / Symbian, actually not directly intending to kick microsoft’s a&$e, came out with two versions of their OS: Symbian 9.3 and Symbian 9.5. Again, rock solid OS systems, each with their own feature adds and extravagant facilities.

At this moment, I’m compelled to talk about their latest OS v9.5 which launched just about a couple of months back (March 27, 2007, to be exact).

Now, what does Symbian v9.5 have in comparison to Microsoft Windows Mobile 6??? I do remember writing somewhere up there that I’m a Symbian programmer… So, here goes…

Symbian v9.5 vs. Windows Mobile 6:

• Demand Paging: This actually means that symbian guys handle memory hardcore PC ishtyle… Take up only the data u want, forget the rest. This was previously un-heard of in the mobile OS space… This directly relates to extremely lesser RAM usage when compared to the existing scenario. No more loading a whole Symbian DLL into RAM and praying that the code actually use it. Just break it up into pages and then use code in an on-demand basis.
• RAM Defragmentation: First, you add paging, then you ensure that you defragment RAM. Directly on your face: No more “OUT OF MEMORY ERRORS IN SYMBIAN!!!!” I wouldnt be surprised if they removed that Error Code from the list…
• File Caching: No need to explain this…
• P.I.P.S: PIPS is Posix on Symbian. Get your Linux geeks, port POSIX compliant apps onto Symbian, enable… Whoa… a report on this here.
• LBS: Location Based Services are built-in and bundled with the mobile. Yeah… this relates to both hardware for GPS and the software required to handle it… Now, this opens up a plethora of things I can get across to my users… I do accept Windows mobile compares here, with Microsoft getting on the GPS bandwagon before Nokia…
• SQL database: This has been there with Microsoft since .net CF 1.0, with SQL mobile on it… But now, Nokia plays this game with hardcore competitors in hand. The SQL database here is the BerkelyDB ported by who else but Oracle!!! Now, we’re talking… Late… but rockin!!!
• Multimedia: I dont really need to talk about this… Nokia has been the GOD here!!! I do accept Sony Ericsson being better with sound, but I would say that the platform is now even, with Nokia also starting to add dedicated Media Processing hardware engines with their new phones…
• IP bearer mobility: Another rock solid feature here… Microsoft came up with this quite sometime back on a Motorola phone that dint actually do a lot in the market. Now, Nokia is sure to hit it with IP subsystems from Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent backing this game… What the statement IP beared mobility means is that a user can seamlessly move across between 3G and wi-fi networks without a connect-drop-reconnect phase. It would simplify into connect-roam-roam-keep roaming…

Whoa!!!! All those and 60 odd more features at a fraction of the cost of a Windows thingy… And needless to say, the ever-strong dedicated Symbian developer community… and their compatriots, the hackers who bring some amazing applications into the hands of the lighter-pocketed, desi mortals nevertheless wielding symbian phones… The combination is deadly… How many of you people would belive if I told you that Handango, the official application vendor for Symbian has already started selling apps for N95. The phone is 3 weeks old!!!

That ends by my standards, a very very long post. Comments are welcome. I did and still mention that I have nothing against Microsoft. It’s the love of Symbian that makes me stand in awe at Nokia’s every creation. The community that backs it up is just enormously fervent. This kind of a power is still not present in the hands of Microsoft developers… At the least I’d say, not yet… Or there must be a very valid reason why Opera is just out with a browser for Windows mobile while their Symbian compatriots have been downloading the best of the internet on Symbian phones for the last year and more… That is just ONE example…

It all boils down to I guess, strategic positioning… You cant do everything you think you want to do… You need to be the GOD there!!! Nokia is GOD!!! No one is spared!!!

Tags: Nokia, OpenC, Opera, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Microsoft, Mobile, Smartphone