Symbian: 'Linux, Microsoft less of a threat than our customers'

Last year, smart phone operating system company Symbian outsold Microsoft at a rate of more than 10 to one. Microsoft has made no secret of its desire to take the fight to Symbian and with Linux starting to make its mark on handhelds overseas, should Symbian be worried?

According to one of its execs, it's not Microsoft or Linux that gives the company cause for concern – it's their own customers.

Microsoft are years behind us. We have the battle-hardened robustness that you get on a system... on 200 networks in 70 countries, rather than just odd operators in odd countries.

-- Jørgen Behrens, VP of product management and strategy, Symbian

Jørgen Behrens, VP of product management and strategy at Symbian, told silicon.com the Redmond giant remains a mobile upstart and has a long way to go to establish itself as a player in the handheld world.

He said: "Microsoft are years behind us. We have the battle-hardened robustness that you get on a system... on 200 networks in 70 countries, rather than just odd operators in odd countries."

In terms of sheer numbers, Microsoft is trailing Symbian impressively. However, analysts believe Microsoft has a grip on the enterprise segment, where corporate IT buyers can tend toward the cautious approach of keeping both desktops and mobile devices under the Microsoft banner.

Behrens told silicon.com that branding is giving Microsoft a foothold in the enterprise but the burgeoning mobile email market which is helping to push smart phones to more users won't necessarily benefit the Gates-led giant.

He said: "In the enterprise segment, no one's that dominant. The horizontal [enterprise market] only cares about push email. Out of all the push email solutions on a mobile OS, Microsoft is the worst of any. The only thing Microsoft have got going for them is the familiarity and the Microsoft look and feel."

Behrens believes that Linux will pose more of a threat to Symbian, with powerful manufacturers backing both operating systems in the Japanese market. But the possibility of bargain basement Linux handsets in the Chinese market won't be keeping Symbian awake at night, however.

Behrens added: We don't see Linux making any inroads apart from those two [Motorola and NTT DoCoMo]... Typically when [other low-cost vendors] slam a phone together with Linux they don't get good quality."

In the future, Symbian will be concentrating its efforts, not on defeating Linux or Microsoft, but rather on wooing handset makers away from their proprietary software and spreading the Symbian operating system down towards the lower end of their handset ranges.

With handset makers traditionally risk averse to such moves, Symbian is working on trimming the costs associated with its operating system including reducing the amount of memory the OS uses and delivering reference designs with semiconductor companies, as well as "investing heavily" in improving documentation and tooling to charm developers.