Now that Nokia has bought Symbian and plans to open source it, they hope to standardize the Symbian platform across all Symbian phones. Many a developer has cried over the need to build many versions of the same Symbian app for various Symbian phone models from multiple manufacturers. Soon, they will cry no more.

Of course, a unified user interface and developer environment on a free OS is the exact selling point of Google Android. Add in the market penetration of Symbian, and you get an awesome combo. Easier development plus wider audience means more apps, which means more useful phones (made cheaper with a free OS), which means more handset sales. Good on Nokia for figuring out how to easily replicate Android’s advantage.

Removing the cost of Symbian licenses, making Symbian apps easier to develop, and uniting Symbian developers’ audience will benefit all Symbian phone manufacturers, including Nokia rivals Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, Simens, LG et al. That’s probably why Ericsson and Siemens sold their Symbian shares to Nokia for a song.

Instead of greedily hoarding its platform, Nokia has opened it reinforce its four-million-strong developer community. Software can be free, while hardware and services cannot; Nokia is eliminating an artificial scarcity to make more money on real scarcities. They have the right focus, a focus borrowed from Google Android and forgotten by Microsoft Ballmer: developers, developers, developers.

Post from: EveryJoe

Nokia Buys Symbian: Developers, Developers, Developers

With Windows 7 supporting multitouch, you have to wonder what its OS-tan will look like. OS-tans — Japanese fan mascots for various operating systems — take the form of cute anime girls with characteristics representative of their respective OSes. 2000-tan is businesslike, XP-tan is bouncy, etc.

If Windows 7 features multitouch, will its OS-tan be a girl you can touch all over? Will she be a grabby nymhpo, an archetype quite common in anime? Will she be a touchy temptress, slowly caressing herself while seductively splayed upon a Microsoft Surface? Discuss.

Post from: EveryJoe

Windows 7 Multitouch Girl?

They’re paying an ad agency $300 million to rebrand themselves as “cool”. I have a better idea: how about they spend that money to build products that are actually cool? In a world where one guy can build a Web 2.0 service for $12,107.09, imagine how many cool new products Microsoft’s army of developers could have built with $300 million.

They’re bribing people to use their search engine. Again. After many repeated attempts, Microsoft has finally given up on building a search engine people actually want to use.

Ballmer no longer wants Microsoft to be about developers. Imagine that: a software company that doesn’t care about software development.

Post from: EveryJoe

Microsoft Gives Up on Technology

Her latest implants have been delayed and Ballmer’s trying to kill her, but she’s still more popular than her spoiled and flaky younger sister. I don’t care how much hype a girl’s got or how much bling she flashes; I’d rather she be rock-solid reliable. Long live XP-tan!

Post from: EveryJoe

Anime Windows XP Girl

One of the draws of Android, the open-source Gphone OS, is the simplicity of developing apps for it. Watch this guy code a dialer in just eight minutes.

LOL at the cactuar in the background. Wonder if that means we’ll be seeing Final Fantasy for the Gphone. After all, Android does support accelerated 3D graphics.

Post from: EveryJoe

Android Dev Demo

Microsoft engineer Eric Traut gives us a sneak peek at the kernel of Windows 7. Note that this is just the kernel, without even a GUI — Windows 7 naked, so to speak. We don’t get to see much of her naked — just a bootup and a basic web server — but this OS-tan looks slimmer than her older sisters. After years of Microsoft giving the world bigger and slower bloatware, Traut wants to go in the opposite direction: streamlining the kernel.

Perhaps this streamlining is a reaction to the rise of Linux and web apps: when the Web is the platform, the OS must reposition itself as a small but solid stepping stone to that platform. Whether or not Microsoft can adapt, when it owes its entire fortune to the past primacy of the big ol’ bundling OS, remains to be seen.

Post from: EveryJoe

Windows 7 Kernel Sneak Peek

With its microscopic focus on procedurally-generated content and gameplay, Will Wright’s Spore promises nothing short of a genuine revolution in the way games are made. Ever since the CD-ROM boom, game development has too often been more about stuffing bloated content than writing elegant code; Spore will be Wright’s greatest effort yet to reverse that uncreative trend.

About the only thing wrong with this game is that it’s not out yet. It’s complete — but given the infinite gameplay permutations possible through its incredibly open-ended engine, compounded by the interactions of user-created content, Spore must be the hardest game in history to playtest. You’ll have to wait until next year to evolve your species. Spore will prove that the best gameplay comes from powerful algorithms coded in Silicon Valley, not expensive cutscenes produced in Hollywood.

Post from: EveryJoe

Spore Complete

PowerPoint could be in for tough competition, while enterprise wikis could be in for widespread adoption. Google Apps is expected to launch presentation and wiki applications at the Office 2.0 Conference next week.

The presentation app will be built from two Google acquisitions, Tonic Systems and Zenter. The wiki app will be built from Google acquisition Jotspot. Tony Ruscoe pokes around Google Apps to reveal evidence of an imminent launch.

Martin Porcheron, a regular Google Blogoscoped forum member, noticed yesterday that “jotspot” is now a Google Apps service code name. Furthermore, anyone with a domain hosted with Google Apps who isn’t using custom logos will see a “Google Wiki” logo when trying to login to the service. (The login page currently returns a “Service not available” message which is normal for services that haven’t yet been activated in your Google Apps account.) A link to “beta.pages.google.com” is also shown. This address doesn’t currently resolve but it could suggest that Jotspot may have been moved to use the same underlying technology as Google Page Creator.

Naturally, what goes to Google Apps will also go to Google Docs. Perhaps as soon as next week, the emerging Earth will be freed from the twin evils of PowerPoint and antisocial knowledge management.

Post from: EveryJoe

Google Apps to Add Presentations and Wikis Next Week?

Generosity is profitable, baby. Adobe Flex goes open source.

The company chose to create an open-source project for the Flex software to garner good ideas and contributions from developers outside Adobe, said Jeff Whatcott, vice president for product marketing at Adobe’s enterprise and developer business unit.

The move is also meant to appeal to open-source developers who shun closed-source and proprietary products. Adobe already offers the Flex software development kit for free and provides the source code.

“For some people, (open source) is a philosophical requirement, a sign of integrity and trust in a vendor,” Whatcott said. “This will close that gap and address any lingering doubts they have about our openness and commitment to community.”

The company is making the transition to open source now because the Flex technology is mature and there is growing interest among developers and rich Internet application development, Whatcott said.

SaaS, a social network, and now open source: time to add Adobe to the “good” side of The Geek’s Guide to Good and Evil.

Post from: EveryJoe

Adobe Flex Goes Open Source

It turns out that open source can do a brilliant job of meeting their actual needs (lower overhead to install and maintain, higher productivity to use, more stable over time) but the problem is that apparent needs (playing it safe, making your boss happy) almost always get in the way. Until it’s too late. When it’s too late, the competition has leapfrogged you.

Soon, it will be too late for many enterprises. Wonder if they’ll still “buy” software then.

Post from: EveryJoe

Actual Versus Apparent Software Needs