Google, Symbian: Cooperation Needed

When it comes to cell-phone software, open is the new black. In less than two years, no fewer than three coalitions have formed with the intent of building mobile handset operating systems with input from all comers. Suddenly the business of developing mobile software—once handled by coders working behind closed doors for a single vendor or group—has gone open source.



To recap, there's the Google-led Open Handset Alliance (BusinessWeek.com, 11/6/07) that draws together dozens of companies to work on an operating system called Android. "The first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices" is how Andy Rubin, director of mobile platforms at Google (GOOG), described the effort, unveiled in November 2007. Then there's the LiMo Foundation, a coalition formed early last year that's already proved successful in getting the Linux open-source operating system onto mobile phones.

Most recently, cell-phone giant Nokia (NOK) said it's buying the part of the Symbian mobile software effort that it doesn't already own, and creating a foundation that will render Symbian open source (BusinessWeek.com, 6/24/08) and give away its software to device makers.

"A Rattly Ship"

Now, the question for many in the wireless industry is to what extent the world needs these potentially competing open software efforts and whether there's capacity for them to work together. "We are all doing the right thing," Rubin says. "I don't think there's anything that would preclude us from working together. How we cooperate—that's the question." Rubin also says he's willing to host a meeting among "everybody that's interested."

Open-source efforts might be able to accomplish a lot more together than they can apart, analysts say. Concerns over the reliability and lack of focus for any one initiative sends some handset makers into the arms of proprietary software makers Microsoft (MSFT), Research In Motion (RIMM), and Apple (AAPL), says Kevin Burden, an analyst at ABI Research. The concern is that open-source initiatives "are a rattly ship, [where] there's no control over where these platforms are going," Burden says.

Google's Rubin isn't alone in welcoming a concerted effort. At a recent Tokyo conference, Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford hinted that as closed Symbian gets reborn into the open-source Symbian Foundation, he'd be open to collaborating with Google in some way. Morgan Gillis, executive director of LiMo, says he wouldn't mind working with Android either. "There's plenty of scope for cooperation," he says.

Who Would Merge?

What would that look like? One option is for the Open Handset Alliance to join the new Symbian Foundation and use some Symbian code in its own software. Symbian, in turn, may want to harness Android's user-friendly menus, which could help vendors such as Nokia better compete with Apple's iPhone. Symbian could also benefit from Dalvik, a type of software developed by the Open Handset Alliance that could help the Symbian Foundation replicate Sun Microsystems (JAVA) Java software that it's restricted from using on its own.