SYMBIAN OPERATING SYSTEM

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SYMBIAN OPERATING SYSTEM

• The Whole new Experience
• 
  - By Mahesh Chauhan

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STRANGE FACT

• Its sounds strange but the fact is that -
• More than 90 of the CPUs in the world are not in
  desktops and notebooks.
• But in embedded systems like cell phones, PDAs
  ,digital cameras, camcorders, game machines,
  iPods, Mp3 Players, TV Sets, GPS Receivers and
  many more consumer products.
• And nearly all of them run a full-blown
  operating system.
• But very Few people are even aware of the
  existence of these operating systems.

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BRIEF HISTORY OF SYMBIAN

• Handheld devices evolved in the late 1980s as
  a means to capture the
• Usefulness of a desktop device in small ,
  mobile package. Handheld devices
• also grew to embrace communication . In the
  1990s, Psion Computers
• manufactured devices that were PDAs. In
  1996, Psion started to design
• a new 32-bit operating system that supported
  pointed devices on a touch
• screen , used multimedia and was more
  communication rich. The new
• system was also more object oriented , and was
  to be portable to different
• architectures and device designs. The result of
  Psion effort was the introdu
• ction of the system as EPOC Release I. EPOC was
  further developed into two
• more releases EPOC Release 3 (ER3) and EPOC
  Release 5 (ER5). These ran on
• new platforms like the Psion Series 5 and Series
  7 computers.

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HISTORY CONTINUES

• Psion also looked to emphasize the ways that its
  operating system could be
• adapted to other hardware platforms. Around the
  year 2000, the most
• Opportunities for new handheld development were
  in the mobile phone
• Business. To take advantage of these
  opportunities, Psion and the leaders in
• the mobile phone industry, including Nokia,
  Ericsson, Motorola, and
• Panasonic formed a joint venture, called
  Symbian, which was to take
• ownership of and further develop the EPOC
  operating system core. This new
• core design was now called Symbian OS.

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COMPETITION

• Symbian OS is the leading OS in the
• smart mobile device market.
• Symbian OS has nearly 67 share of the
• smart mobile device market, with
• Microsoft having 13 through Windows
• Mobile and RIM having 10 Business.
• Other competitors include Palm OS, iPhone OS,
  BREW, Google Android, Linux.

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IS IT OPEN SOURCE????

• Symbian OS version 6 was called "open" by its
  designers.
• Symbian OS is open what does this
  mean?
• It is different from the term open
  source.
• By open Symbian OS designers meant that the
  structure of the operating system was published
  and available to all.
• In addition, all system interfaces were published
  to
• foster third-party software design.

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LICENSEES
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Today- a wide range of phones
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SYMBIAN OS VERSIONS

• EPOC (v 5)
• OS was renamed to Symbian after that version.
• - Java, PC Connectivity, IrDA, SMS
• Symbian OS 6.0, 6.1
• - WAP, Java Phone API, Bluetooth GPRS
• Symbian OS 7.0
• - HW Acceleration , IPv6, Much more improved.
• Symbian OS 8.0, 8.1
• - Audio and video support for recording,
  security improvements
• Symbian OS 9.1
• - Platform Security (Introduce certificates)
• Symbian OS 9.2, 9.3
• - Nokia E90, Nokia N95, Nokia E51, N96
• Symbian OS 9.5
• - SQL support is provided by SQLite

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Symbian OS Features Just Like LARGER
SYSTEMS

• Despite the size of its target computers,
  Symbian OS had many of the
• features of its larger siblings.
• Processes and Threads
• Symbian OS is a multitasking and
  multithreaded operating system. Many processes
  can run concurrently , can communi-
• cate with each other, and can utilize multiple
  threads that run internal to each process.
• Common File System support
• Symbian OS organizes access to system storage
  using a file system model, just like larger
  Operating systems. It has a default file system
  compatible with windows (by default it uses
  FAT-32 file system). It supports other file
  system implementations through a plug-in style
  interface. It supports several different file
  systems , like FAT 16 FAT 32, NTFS etc.

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Symbian OS Features Just Like LARGER
SYSTEMS

• Networking
• Symbian OS supports TCP/IP networking as
  well as several other communication interfaces
  such as serial , infrared and Bluetooth.
• Memory Management
• Although Symbian OS does not use (or have the
  facilities for ) mapped virtual memory , it
  organizes memory access in pages and allows for
  the replacement of the pages, that is , bringing
  pages in, but not swapping them out.

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security in symbian os

• Smartphone provide a difficult environment to
  make secure. They are single user devices and
  require no user authentication to use basic
  functions.
• Symbian OS is very capable yet susceptible to
  viruses, worms and other malicious programs.
• Versions of Symbian OS prior to version 9 offered
  a gatekeeper type of security
• The system asked the user for permission to
  install every installed application. The thinking
  in this design was that only user-installed
  applications could cause system havoc and an
  informed user would know what programs he
  intended to install and what programs were
  malicious. The user was trusted to use them
  wisely.
• This gatekeeper design has a lot of merit.

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security in symbian os

• The problem with this design is that users do not
  always know the complete ramifications of the
  software they are installing. There are viruses
  that masquerade as useful programs, performing
  useful functions while silently installing
  malicious code. Normal users are unable to verify
  the complete trustworthiness of all the software
  available.
• This verification of trust is what prompted a
  complete redesign of platform security for
  Symbian OS version 9.
• This version of the operating system keeps the
  gatekeeper model, but takes the responsibility
  for verifying software away from the user.
• Each software developer is now responsible for
  verifying her own software through a process
  called signing and the system verifies the
  developers claim.

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the symbian platform is now
becoming open source via the symbian
foundation
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Symbian foundation

• Symbian Foundation moves closer to launch as
  Nokia announced that it had completed its offer
  to acquire Symbian Limited.
• About Symbian Foundation
• On June 24, 2008, mobile industry leaders
  announced their intent to create the Symbian
  Foundation, with membership open to all
  organizations. At the same time, Nokia announced
  its offer to acquire Symbian Limited. Following
  the close of that acquisition, Nokia will
  contribute Symbian OS and S60 software to the
  foundation.
• The foundation's platform will build on Symbian
  OS, today's leading OS with more than 225
  million phones already shipped and with tens of
  thousands of third-party applications already
  available for these devices.
• The foundation will work to make the platform
  available in open source by June 2010 (two years
  from the Symbian Foundation announcement).

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Thats all about symbian

• Thank you for your Time!
• Any Questions?