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Wireless versus cellphone; Microsoft versus Symbian?

Last February, Intel said it was optimising its embedded processor chips for Windows CE. Now, it has a similar joint announcement with Symbian; the same processor, but the alternative operating system for phones. What's the difference?

The joint announcement between Symbian and Intel was one of the quiet highlights of the Symbian Developer Expo last week.

It simply said that Intel and Symbian "have completed the optimization of the latest version of Symbian's operating system for data-enabled cellular phones, Symbian OS version 7.0," - an announcement of no real relevance to anybody except developers, in theory.

However, Symbian's decision to to support Intel ARM processors (which is what the phrase "based on the Intel® XScaleâ„¢ technology" means) is absolutely vital. The big media hype of the week is the launch of the first "gigaherz embedded processor" - but in fact, most Symbian devices will probably be much slower processors, using much less power (battery power) than the new ARM11 chip will.

Symbian and Intel plan to ship a board support package including the Symbian OS version 7.0 to help developers accelerate the process of designing next-generation cellular phones and applications utilizing these technologies. It's a package for designers of phones, in short, not aimed at phone users; but the important point is that it ships in May.

In the point-scoring game Microsoft and Symbian are currently playing, you might think Symbian lost this point; the Microsoft announcement was in February. The difference, though, is that Symbian is actually ready to ship; the .Net development is some time off.

And the Microsoft announcement is far more about the pocket computer than the phone.

"We're pleased to see the continuing cooperation between Intel and Symbian and a shared vision of growing the wireless data market segment, said David Wood, Executive Vice President, Partnering Evangelism and Research, Symbian.

"The wireless industry is beginning a significant shift from simple voice-only phones to data-enabled smartphones that combine communications, wireless Internet access and computing functionality," said Tony Sica, Intel vice president, Wireless Communications and Computing Group, and group marketing director, Wireless Communications and Computing Group.

"The latest Symbian OS optimized for Intel XScale technology is the result of close cooperation between our two companies and a shared vision to help bring data applications and services to mobile phones."

For me, however, the interesting angle was the fact that at the Symbian show, all the people doing really interesting software were showing it on PocketPC platforms. They were heavily disguised, to avoid revealing what they were inside the demo; but the phone isn't a computer, and probably never will be. It's significant, I think that it isn't Symbian who is doing the WiFi and Bluetooth stuff: "Intel will provide additional tools including the Intel® Integrated Performance Primitives (Intel IPP) and support for wireless technologies like GSM/GPRS, 802.11, and Bluetooth," the announcement says.

More information on how developers can start evaluating Symbian OS and its integrated Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processor support can be found at http://developer.intel.com and information on the Symbian Developer Network can be found at www.symbian.com/developer. Information about the Intel PCA Developer Network and the Intel DBPXA250 development system can be found at www.intel.com/pca.