Smack-talk: Symbian Vs. Google Android

Google's newly announced mobile platform, Android, is barely 2 days old and already the smack-talk is flying from competing software vendors.

John Forsyth, Vice President of Strategy at Symbian, makers of the dominant Symbian OS for mobile phones used prominently on Nokia phones, had this to say:

"About every three months this year there has been a mobile Linux initiative of some sort launched.

"It's a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round and then we go back to business. We don't participate in these full stop. We make our own platform and we are focused on driving that into the mobile phone market at large ever more aggressively."

Calling Google a common cold virus? Isn't that a bit harsh? I'd think they'd at least qualify as the flu.

"It's costly, arduous and at times a deeply unsexy job of supporting customers day by day in launching phones. That's something there's very little experience of in Google's environment.

"if you are a serious phone maker and you are asked to bet your handsets on somebody, you would want to bet on someone with a track record of delivery and support."

I'd have to agree that Google does face some challenges building a network of support for the rather large Open Handset Alliance. Google has made their success in building web applications that deliver its search and, more importantly, its advertising technology to browsers everywhere (and some phones). Building applications for the mostly standards based web environment; however, is a completely different animal than building a whole platform to be run on devices from 30+ companies.

If anyone can do it though, it's Google. They've got the brains, and they've certainly got the deep pockets to fund such a project. That's what Symbian's scared of, and that's why John Forsyth was driven to speak in order to downplay Google's announcement.

We'll see if Google delivers the goods when we get our hot little hands on Android.

Symbian dismisses Google Android [BBC News]