Nokia shifting to Linux as it joins with Apple to challenge Windows 2
Analysis NokiaÂ’s ambitious bid to make the mobile phone as important a client device for business and leisure as the notebook PC took another important turn last week with news that it has created a browser in collaboration with Apple, which will be managed under the open source process.
This starts to address awkward web browsing, a key weakness of the phone’s bid to be the ‘new notebook’, and it raises interesting questions about how much further Nokia and Apple could go in cooperating on the anti- Microsoft ecosystem, and how far Nokia is committing its future to Linux.
Nokia aims significantly to broaden the influence of its Series 60 software architecture to bring it closer to the role taken by the Windows/Visual .Net environment on PCs. Like Microsoft, this will entail making a decision on whether to keep its software platforms closely tied to its OS, or whether to move on to other systems too.
Nokia has worked with Apple to create a mobile browser for the Finnish companyÂ’s Series 60, the user interface layer that is critical to its plans to set standards for enterprise mobile devices and to create a developer ecosystem that can rival that of Microsoft Visual .Net.
In its bid to establish Series 60 devices as dominant in the next generation of client platforms, Nokia is increasingly looking to the open source community, into which it will place the new browser. Coupled with the recent launch of NokiaÂ’s Linux/Wi-Fi tablet product, this suggests a shift away from backing Symbian OS as the only operating system for smart phones, and towards promoting Series 60 and Java on multiple platforms, notably Linux.
This will help to accelerate the creation of a developer community for Series 60, and will please NokiaÂ’s key enterprise partner IBM. A strong web experience is vital to make the handset appeal as a business data tool and has so far been a weakness that AppleÂ’s Safari technology could help to address. It is likely that other Apple expertise, in areas such as Wi-Fi and user interfaces, will be tapped by Nokia, and it is also possible that Nokia will create an iPhone and help take Apple devices back into the enterprise.
To expand Series 60, it is making several key moves that would have been alien to it a couple of years ago – licensing the platform to other phone makers, working increasingly within the open source process, and adopting technologies from companies in the consumer space to strengthen its own R&D. All this will enhance the value and appeal of Series 60 to the developer community that is critical for gaining broad uptake for any mobile platform.
The Apple deal
The Apple deal fits well within this strategy to create a rich, open platform that can compete with Windows and the Visual Studio tools in the enterprise and consumer markets, and keep Microsoft at bay on mobile devices. Browsing is an important issue that needs to be addressed more effectively than it has been to date on mobile devices, particularly as handsets incorporate open IP access via Wi-Fi and as operators start, grudgingly, to open their walled gardens.
But other software areas where Apple has a good track record, and which could be included in the Nokia deal in future, include user interface design, MP3 and QuickTime video. Nokia stressed that it would continue to work with Apple beyond this browser cooperation, and of course sparked widespread speculation that the iTunes music download platform would find its way into the partnership.
The mobile suppliers are racing to sign up music allies as this becomes an increasingly important part of the operators’ business plans – Ericsson signed a partnership with iTunes’ main rival, Napster, last week, while its joint venture Sony Ericsson has released a music phone under Sony’s venerable Walkman brand. Motorola was the first phone maker to promise a handset incorporating iTunes, though this has not yet materialized, and a similar plan from Nokia is now widely expected.
Series 60
Conversely, as Nokia licenses Series 60 to other device makers – including LG, Lenovo, Panasonic, Siemens / BenQ and, for the browser, Samsung - it could be angling for a future iPod incorporating cellular links and its software platform, which would be a major lure to Series 60 for consumer focused developers. However, while a Nokia iPhone would be a significant boost to its portfolio, in the longer term, the enhancements that Apple could bring to Series 60 are more important to the broader strategy of creating a de facto standard software platform for mobility – something that will give Nokia far greater influence on the future of the market than mere handset volumes, as well as improved margins, the Finnish company believes.
The new Series 60 browser will use the same components as Apple’s Safari browser for the Mac ranges and will be powered by the same open source technology, KHTML and KJS – key elements of the open source Konqueror browser, of which Safari is a commercial implementation. It will use the WebCore and JavaScriptCore currently used in Safari and will also incorporate mobile specific functions from the current Series 60 browser, such as small screen rendering and keypad shortcuts.
Within the open source community, Nokia will bring this mobility expertise to bear on future releases of Safari. An important aspect of the new browser will be enhanced support for customization of applications by developers. All the major mobile software platforms are evolving to support the demand by operators that their interfaces and applications should be able to be easily customized, to aid differentiation.
The rise of Nokia Linux
Longer term, the browser development shows an increasing tendency for Nokia to include Linux technologies in its thinking – the open source version of Safari is part of the KDE user interface environment for Linux, which could conceivably be melded with elements of Series 60 to create a mobilized version. Until recently, Nokia was firmly behind the SymbianOS operating system, in which it holds the largest stake, as the only smart phone platform and the basis of its challenge to Windows in the mobile world.
But last month it announced its first non-cellular device for many years, a Wi-Fi/internet tablet running Linux, as an enterprise oriented hybrid between the notebook and the mobile. It announced full commitment to Linux and availability of its patents to the open source community, and the adoption of the open source browser – with Apple’s help – is another step in this direction, and one that would appeal to its key partner in the enterprise, Linux backer IBM.
Importantly, the operating system is becoming less important in the handset wars than the real differentiator, the user interface layer that controls the delivery and appearance of applications and allows for customization of the device by the operator, developer or even end user. Outside of Windows Mobile, the Java programming language is increasingly providing a common layer that spans different OSs – including the proprietary, cut-down ones that still run most phones. This means that, while Nokia once saw control of the OS as vital to its plans, SymbianOS may now be less important than Series 60 and Java, frameworks that could be migrated to Linux and other OSes.
It is not clear whether the implementation of Safari will become standard across Nokia handsets. It also offers the Opera browser on some models, and two years ago took an early open source interest when it invested in the Mozilla FoundationÂ’s Minimo project to create a phone-based browser. Minimo will release a browser this summer, but it will initially be just for Microsoft Windows CE.
Nokia has also created an application that turns the mobile phone into a web server, in effect, allowing users can create personal pages on their phones complete with text and graphics and exchange these with other phones. The Nokia Sensor application uses Bluetooth to exchange pages and share files. When users download the app, called Sensor, they are given templates to build their own personal pages.
Whatever individual products Nokia decides to back within Series 60 and its consumer oriented stablemate, Series 40, its challenge is to enable the mobile platform to handle data and web access as effectively as the notebook, as data prepares to overtake voice as the primary driver of mobile traffic within three years.
The mobile software platform that best supports browing, data access and web services applications will have a strong advantage in the race to become the successor to Windows as the business client OS of choice in the next decade. Windows itself has all kinds of advantages in this race, but is lumbered with a user interface that, while it has the benefit of familiarity, is certainly not optimized for mobile platforms yet.
NokiaÂ’s Series 60 is mobile specific but has lacked the enterprise developer base and the close integration with server and desktop platforms that Visual .Net boasts. Using Linux, enhanced web access technologies and Java could start to close the gap, and Apple could ride on NokiaÂ’s coat tails to regain a long lost position in the mainstream client device market.
Analysis NokiaÂ’s ambitious bid to make the mobile phone as important a client device for business and leisure as the notebook PC took another important turn last week with news that it has created a browser in collaboration with Apple, which will be managed under the open source process.
This starts to address awkward web browsing, a key weakness of the phone’s bid to be the ‘new notebook’, and it raises interesting questions about how much further Nokia and Apple could go in cooperating on the anti- Microsoft ecosystem, and how far Nokia is committing its future to Linux.
Nokia aims significantly to broaden the influence of its Series 60 software architecture to bring it closer to the role taken by the Windows/Visual .Net environment on PCs. Like Microsoft, this will entail making a decision on whether to keep its software platforms closely tied to its OS, or whether to move on to other systems too.
Nokia has worked with Apple to create a mobile browser for the Finnish companyÂ’s Series 60, the user interface layer that is critical to its plans to set standards for enterprise mobile devices and to create a developer ecosystem that can rival that of Microsoft Visual .Net.
In its bid to establish Series 60 devices as dominant in the next generation of client platforms, Nokia is increasingly looking to the open source community, into which it will place the new browser. Coupled with the recent launch of NokiaÂ’s Linux/Wi-Fi tablet product, this suggests a shift away from backing Symbian OS as the only operating system for smart phones, and towards promoting Series 60 and Java on multiple platforms, notably Linux.
This will help to accelerate the creation of a developer community for Series 60, and will please NokiaÂ’s key enterprise partner IBM. A strong web experience is vital to make the handset appeal as a business data tool and has so far been a weakness that AppleÂ’s Safari technology could help to address. It is likely that other Apple expertise, in areas such as Wi-Fi and user interfaces, will be tapped by Nokia, and it is also possible that Nokia will create an iPhone and help take Apple devices back into the enterprise.
To expand Series 60, it is making several key moves that would have been alien to it a couple of years ago – licensing the platform to other phone makers, working increasingly within the open source process, and adopting technologies from companies in the consumer space to strengthen its own R&D. All this will enhance the value and appeal of Series 60 to the developer community that is critical for gaining broad uptake for any mobile platform.
The Apple deal
The Apple deal fits well within this strategy to create a rich, open platform that can compete with Windows and the Visual Studio tools in the enterprise and consumer markets, and keep Microsoft at bay on mobile devices. Browsing is an important issue that needs to be addressed more effectively than it has been to date on mobile devices, particularly as handsets incorporate open IP access via Wi-Fi and as operators start, grudgingly, to open their walled gardens.
But other software areas where Apple has a good track record, and which could be included in the Nokia deal in future, include user interface design, MP3 and QuickTime video. Nokia stressed that it would continue to work with Apple beyond this browser cooperation, and of course sparked widespread speculation that the iTunes music download platform would find its way into the partnership.
The mobile suppliers are racing to sign up music allies as this becomes an increasingly important part of the operators’ business plans – Ericsson signed a partnership with iTunes’ main rival, Napster, last week, while its joint venture Sony Ericsson has released a music phone under Sony’s venerable Walkman brand. Motorola was the first phone maker to promise a handset incorporating iTunes, though this has not yet materialized, and a similar plan from Nokia is now widely expected.
Series 60
Conversely, as Nokia licenses Series 60 to other device makers – including LG, Lenovo, Panasonic, Siemens / BenQ and, for the browser, Samsung - it could be angling for a future iPod incorporating cellular links and its software platform, which would be a major lure to Series 60 for consumer focused developers. However, while a Nokia iPhone would be a significant boost to its portfolio, in the longer term, the enhancements that Apple could bring to Series 60 are more important to the broader strategy of creating a de facto standard software platform for mobility – something that will give Nokia far greater influence on the future of the market than mere handset volumes, as well as improved margins, the Finnish company believes.
The new Series 60 browser will use the same components as Apple’s Safari browser for the Mac ranges and will be powered by the same open source technology, KHTML and KJS – key elements of the open source Konqueror browser, of which Safari is a commercial implementation. It will use the WebCore and JavaScriptCore currently used in Safari and will also incorporate mobile specific functions from the current Series 60 browser, such as small screen rendering and keypad shortcuts.
Within the open source community, Nokia will bring this mobility expertise to bear on future releases of Safari. An important aspect of the new browser will be enhanced support for customization of applications by developers. All the major mobile software platforms are evolving to support the demand by operators that their interfaces and applications should be able to be easily customized, to aid differentiation.
The rise of Nokia Linux
Longer term, the browser development shows an increasing tendency for Nokia to include Linux technologies in its thinking – the open source version of Safari is part of the KDE user interface environment for Linux, which could conceivably be melded with elements of Series 60 to create a mobilized version. Until recently, Nokia was firmly behind the SymbianOS operating system, in which it holds the largest stake, as the only smart phone platform and the basis of its challenge to Windows in the mobile world.
But last month it announced its first non-cellular device for many years, a Wi-Fi/internet tablet running Linux, as an enterprise oriented hybrid between the notebook and the mobile. It announced full commitment to Linux and availability of its patents to the open source community, and the adoption of the open source browser – with Apple’s help – is another step in this direction, and one that would appeal to its key partner in the enterprise, Linux backer IBM.
Importantly, the operating system is becoming less important in the handset wars than the real differentiator, the user interface layer that controls the delivery and appearance of applications and allows for customization of the device by the operator, developer or even end user. Outside of Windows Mobile, the Java programming language is increasingly providing a common layer that spans different OSs – including the proprietary, cut-down ones that still run most phones. This means that, while Nokia once saw control of the OS as vital to its plans, SymbianOS may now be less important than Series 60 and Java, frameworks that could be migrated to Linux and other OSes.
It is not clear whether the implementation of Safari will become standard across Nokia handsets. It also offers the Opera browser on some models, and two years ago took an early open source interest when it invested in the Mozilla FoundationÂ’s Minimo project to create a phone-based browser. Minimo will release a browser this summer, but it will initially be just for Microsoft Windows CE.
Nokia has also created an application that turns the mobile phone into a web server, in effect, allowing users can create personal pages on their phones complete with text and graphics and exchange these with other phones. The Nokia Sensor application uses Bluetooth to exchange pages and share files. When users download the app, called Sensor, they are given templates to build their own personal pages.
Whatever individual products Nokia decides to back within Series 60 and its consumer oriented stablemate, Series 40, its challenge is to enable the mobile platform to handle data and web access as effectively as the notebook, as data prepares to overtake voice as the primary driver of mobile traffic within three years.
The mobile software platform that best supports browing, data access and web services applications will have a strong advantage in the race to become the successor to Windows as the business client OS of choice in the next decade. Windows itself has all kinds of advantages in this race, but is lumbered with a user interface that, while it has the benefit of familiarity, is certainly not optimized for mobile platforms yet.
NokiaÂ’s Series 60 is mobile specific but has lacked the enterprise developer base and the close integration with server and desktop platforms that Visual .Net boasts. Using Linux, enhanced web access technologies and Java could start to close the gap, and Apple could ride on NokiaÂ’s coat tails to regain a long lost position in the mainstream client device market.
