OStatic

When Nokia announced that it was launching the Symbian Foundation to great fanfare, it had within its grasp that rarest of opportunities to move swiftly and become the dominant open source mobile platform. Alas, just one and a half years later, they have seemingly ceded that position to Android. Instead of recognizing the threat from Android and making strategic changes to counter, they instead criticized Google's closed-door development of Android before releasing a line of code themselves. When criticizing competitors, it helps to have your own house in order first.

?In October, the Symbian Foundation released the Symbian kernel sources to the world, and the rest of the world (read: developers) collectively responded, Great. Where's my Android phone? I've often lauded Google for its ability to fuse the marketing, PR and developer benefits of open source projects into one seemless operation. It would seem that Symbian could stand to learn a few things. The question is, is it too late?

I am always tickled when I can write about (and introduce others to) open source applications that solve, quickly and easily, the very real problems that frequently arise when technology manufacturers (or providers) assume that customers use their devices in completely homogenous settings.

So today, it seems, is my lucky day -- today Funambol unleashes version 8 of its nifty open source mobile cloud push and sync software that enables a wide variety of mobile phones (including iPhones, Blackberry, Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices) to share and sync information with a number of email clients, POP and IMAP mail servers, PIMs, and social networks. And while it's great to wax poetic about the subtle joy that can be had just by syncing your smartphone that wasn't designed to communicate with another software company's email and calendaring application, I'm fortunate enough to be able to share the experience with ten readers in the form of membership invites.

First, though, the important part: What's new in Funambol v8?

When I heard that Funambol was rolling out an open source mobile cloud sync service for mobile VoIP users, I'll be honest -- I wasn't thinking about the open code, or about how much easier it would make contacting people worldwide over a diverse array of devices. I immediately thought of my dad.

He could very well be just like your dad, or mom, or you. He likes gadgets, and if the gadgets beep, flash, or vibrate at a random enough interval to make my mom grind her teeth or clutch her ears, he likes them even more. However, he's got two things working against him -- he's not blessed in the patience department (like my mom, it would seem) and he's got arthritic hands to the point of immobility. As such, his work-issued Blackberry wasn't nearly as useful as his old Palm Pilot when it came to being an electronic memory. It was merely a phone he couldn't dial all that easily.

He was delighted when I showed him Skype, and was flattered when all these young women he didn't know kept calling. The novelty gave way to annoyance when he realized he must know some people on Skype, but finding and connecting with them took patience.

New mVoIP users start with a blank address book, and many mVoIP services can't sync existing contact information from cell phones or other address books. Funambol's mVoIP enables service providers to allow syncing from address books and social networks -- so that an address change made anywhere (say, a contact's Facebook profile or the Funambol web portal) updates all associated devices.

Earlier this week, the Qt Labs at Nokia announced a new project, QtMobility. QtMobility's primary goal is to offer a new set of Qt API development tools for mobile device applications.

While this will certainly make life easier for developers working with the Qt framework on specific Nokia devices, one of the best (and intentional) fringe benefits is that the new API tools are cross-platform. A single application, then, can be built and maintained for any supported Qt platform -- regardless of the mobile device model or manufacturer.

As the story broke yesterday that Novell and Intel were joining forces to encourage OEMs and ODMs to use the Linux-based Moblin platform on netbooks and small devices, a number of comments -- and questions -- began swirling in the open source world.

InfoWorld wonders if the collaboration efforts aren't a bad omen for Novell's SUSE Linux, while CNet's Matt Asay thinks the move could be a positive one for Moblin and Novell, and one that could ultimately give Google's Android a real fight.

Ah, the open source business model, and the inevitable question that always accompanies its mention -- How can you make money if you give the product away? Then come the raised eyebrows when you mention support and training services. It does work, of course. Any business, whether it makes open or proprietary software products, or noise makers and party hats, needs to diligently think of ways to make its products more useful and appealing to its current -- and potential -- markets.

One of the best ways to do this is to just listen. What are current users (or those who'd like to, but...) asking for? Funambol is no stranger to asking its users how they feel about the business and its services, and seriously considering the feedback that is received. Customer demand is in large part why Funambol now offers hosting services for its commercial Carrier Edition software.

As news of Openmoko's harsh but realistic look at the road ahead ripples through the open source and mobile technology sectors, there will be, beyond a doubt, much speculation on how the project's challenges could have been minimized and its successes built upon. Perhaps Openmoko's attempt to bring a completely open mobile phone to the world was Quixotic. Perhaps it was a good idea that simply launched at a bad time. Perhaps it was (and still is) a very workable idea -- or maybe it will always have an extremely niche appeal. Openmoko's pulling away from FreeRunner phones (and looking toward its Plan B ) might well work out just as Michael Lauer writes on his blog -- not at all as a death sentence, nor as any sort of indication that free platforms don't work (or aren't desired) on mobile phones.

Sometimes, I'll come across a story that seems minor, and once I start really thinking about it, dozens of shiny shards of complexity make their presence known. Today's announcement coming from Intel and the Linux Foundation isn't one of those stories. It's a major announcement -- Intel is handing its Moblin Project over to the Linux Foundation for hosting, development, and support. It's a big deal at face value -- and once fully considered, it just keeps growing.

Moblin is one of the most advanced -- and open -- mobile platforms. It's rooted firmly in Linux, and can be configured to run in many iterations on a wide variety of mobile devices, ranging from netbooks to in-car information and entertainment systems. So why is Intel turning over the reins to the Linux Foundation? As the Linux Foundation's Executive Director, Jim Zemlin, tells the New York Times, Moblin is working out to be a strategic platform as much as it is a mobile one.