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Before Android so overwhelmingly dominated the landscape of mobile operating systems, there was another platform in place, which dominated the landscape. It was Symbian.

Symbian was originally conceived for computers handheld from Psion, under the name EPOC

Although gradually, it began to be licensed to third parties and to be adapted to different types of devices, such as mobile phones. the era and PDAs. This led Psion to separate its software division, turning it into a new company under the name Psion. Software.

In 1998, both the company and the platform changed their name, going to use the Symbian name with which they would be known until the end of their days. This company is also a joint-venture formed between Psion, Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson.

The distribution of the interests in Symbian Ltd. would change over time and the entry of new partners (Samsung, Matsushita, Siemens), the reconversion of some (Ericsson in Sony Ericsson) and the abandonment from others (Psion, Motorola).

With its activity focused on the emerging smartphone market, Symbian had to face competition from a twilight Palm, a burgeoning BlackBerry, and a Microsoft that has never known exactly how to approach said market

BlackBerry was, for a time, its only major rival, since Palm did not cope well with the PDA + binomialmobile to smart phones that performed both functions, and although Microsoft was more important in the market than it is now, it was never a rival to Symbian.

The real problems for this near-monopoly came from Apple in 2007, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone.

Terminals produced with operating system Symbian were touch, not multi-touch, and they were not as attractive, efficient and powerful as the iPhone.

The crash of Symbian OS was caused by the excessive control that Nokia imposed on it, and that bothered the other manufacturers using the platform, leading them to embrace Android

An example of this is that Symbian provided the base operating system, which each manufacturer then completed with its own interface graph, resulting in the possibility of differentiating from each other.

Thus, a number of companies that were dedicated precisely to the production of graphical interfaces for such manufacturers, such as UIQ, used by Sony Ericsson.

Following the acquisition of Symbian Ltd. by Nokia in 2008, the Finnish manufacturer imposed the use of the S60 interface, something that annoyed others manufacturers, since Nokia was driving a platform that they shared in the directions that most they interested her.

In 2009, Nokia formed the Symbian Foundation, in theory an independent body born to manage the platform of software and everything related to it, but the damage was done.

A Symbian technologically outdated and that in the market was surpassed by iOS, Android and BlackBerry OS was facing its final stretch in 2010, when Nokia announced the creation of an independent entity that would manage the inheritance of this software, at the same time that it began to look for a substitute for Symbian.

Initially he turned to his own Linux called Maemo, which came to equip the N900 terminal, and which later merged with Intel's Moblin to give rise to MeeGo, a platform aborted due to the entry into the company of Stephen Elop and the turn he took into the arms of Microsoft Y Windows.

Symbian, the platform software born in the small handheld computers, which had seen the birth of the smartphones, discreetly gave way to other platforms more adapted to the new times, more in accordance with the needs of the industry, and more to the liking of the public Username.

Without a doubt, a sad end for an operating system that had marked an era.

Photo: Fotolia - WavebreakmediaMicro

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