25 October 2009

'Forget Apple, The Real Evil Is Google'
Says Symbian CEO, Lee Williams

The Symbian operating system has received a bad rap from various directions. Most of it, like the claim that the OS is outdated, when the real issue is only related to the user interface, or that the competition has passed them by technologically, when in reality they're still behind Symbian in most respects, just really irks my nerves and rubs me the wrong way.

The lack of knowledge from the sources of the misinformation is just as bad, and Symbian's competitors are quick to run with these claims all the way to the bank.

Shockingly, Nokia, the original benefactor of the Symbian Foundation, always takes the high road, and never responds to some of the wild and untrue statements about Symbian and its competitors.

Apple, Google, and others have made considerable inroads at the expense of Symbian's market share, and for once, I'd like to see someone get mad. Show some teeth and put these folks in check, why don't you? If only someone would step forward and start setting the record straight.

Evidently, the CEO of Symbian, Lee Williams, has the intestinal fortitude I've been waiting to see. In a rather candid interview with GigaOm's Om Malik, all brazenly recorded on camera for the world to see, Williams sets the record straight about Symbian's true open source operating system versus Google's Android. Lee Williams becomes my hero in the video below.

(Blip.Tv, the site hosting the video, is having issues at the time of this post, so the video may not be viewable at the moment, but the embedded code is a direct link to the original video. It should be viewable at a later time. Hopefully, the video isn't removed.)

The "Evil Empire" stigma attached to Microsoft in the 1990's has slowly been attached to Google along with its Android smartphone operating system by many developers, and I could never figure out why. Now, not only is the reason clear, but there seems to be some logic behind the whole thing. Google is really just a wolf and sheep's clothing, and I applaud Lee Williams for calling it like he sees it. It's always good to know the truth, especially from someone in the position of Lee Williams, who's even closer to the industry than we could ever be.

I hope Symbian continues to keep the gloves off and exposes the competition as the paper champions they are. Symbian is the only real open smartphone OS. (I don't consider Maemo 5 to be a smartphone OS, so you know...) The rest of the tale has been laid out by Symbian's CEO. Apple's greedy, but ANDROID? Those cats are EVIL!!

In short, Nokia wants to venture into the online content service industry, which brings it near to Google’s territory and therefore we are closer to new cold war than to the cooperation between them.