The Whole new Experience - By Mahesh Chauhan

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.

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.

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.

 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.

 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.

 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

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 communicate 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.

 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.

 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 userinstalled 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.

 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.

 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).

Thank you for your Time! Any Questions?