Symbian launches the industry's first ideas exchange at SEE 2009

At the Symbian Exchange and Exposition 2009 (SEE 2009) in London, 27 – 28 October, the Symbian Foundation launched the industry’s first ideas exchange online at ideas.symbian.org . The website will enable Symbian’s community and consumers worldwide to influence the future of mobile.


The ideas exchange allows site visitors to submit their ideas for enhanced mobile features, apps and improvements to the Symbian Foundation itself for community validation through a voting system. Ideas well received by the community will be assigned to an expert who will work to bring them to fruition. More than 115 ideas were submitted to the Symbian Ideas site since it launched on Day 1 and more than 75 visitors to SEE 2009 submitted their ideas there and then at the Ideas stand.


“We launched the industry’s first ideas exchange, and established a new precedent for how conferences can run in the mobile marketplace,” said Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation. “Our SEE event was a successful event for many reasons, including the accomplishment of several key milestones for our platform and community efforts. The two days provided real opportunities for increased communication and collaboration within the community."


He continued, "I’d like to thank the community and our member companies for their contributions to the event, without which SEE 2009 would not have been such a success."


In a video interview recently, Lee discusses the highlights from the results of this community gathering and collaboration, some of which are outlined below:


Symbian Exchange and Exposition key stats
• 2253 visitors attended SEE 2009 in London.
• 700 people continued to network in the more informal setting of the party on the evening of Day 1.
• More than 8500 unique listeners tuned in to BlogTalk radio coverage of SEE 2009.
• The launch of the new community site (www.symbian.org) on 26 October saw the average time spent on the site triple. Visits to Symbian’s other websites increased dramatically, by 20% to developer.symbian.org and 40% to the Japanese community site.
• 558 downloads of the Kernel Taster Kit in the week since it was released under EPL (http://blog.symbian.org/2009/10/30/550-downloads-and-rising/).
• Developers queued at the Horizon pod throughout both days of SEE 2009 to find out more about the application publishing programme (horizon.symbian.org) and to tell foundation staff more about their apps.


UI Workshop, Developer Training Labs and BoFs
The UI Workshop held at Symbian’s London office brought competitors together and resulted in some fantastic ideas that will be expanded on and documented in the coming weeks (symbianuibrainstorm.wordpress.com/).


The SEE 2009 developer training labs were busy at all times, especially those related to the build system and microkernel, with developers sitting on the floor and standing outside the doorway to participate.


The BoFs were an unqualified success, full to capacity and filled with non-stop conversation (http://blog.symbian.org/2009/11/02/bofs-see-thank-you/).


Contributions Offered and Confirmed, and Major Partnerships Announced
Layar, the Dutch Augmented Reality leaders, announced on Day Two (28 October) that it will be distributing their AR technology on Symbian devices as of Q1 2010.


SEE 2009 also provided an opportunity for impromptu offers of contributions, just two of which are described by the foundation’s Connectivity Technology Manager, Tom Pritchard (http://blog.symbian.org/2009/10/30/the-joy-of-see/).


Contributions confirmed at SEE 2009 included the technology that will enable the Social Media API, referred to by Lee Williams in his keynote. Kalle Toivonen, Vice President, Nokia Business at Saskens, which contributed this technology, noted the reciprocal benefit of making contributions to the Symbian platform:
“In the open source world, contributions are the best way to demonstrate the competences and know-how available in a company like Sasken. When a developer needs professional services about using the code contributed and modifying it, the contributor always has the advantage. At the end of the day, this means that open source contribution is good for the professional service business too.”


Symbian’s Membership and Board of Directors Strengthened
The number of foundation members rose to 171 during the two-day event, and a further 14 applicants need only to be approved by the Board of Directors.


Two more funding members, Fujitsu Limited and Qualcomm Innovation Center, were elected to the Symbian Foundation Board of Directors at the board meeting on Day 2 (www.symbian.org/news-and-media).