The Symbian Foundation really really likes what other operating systems and mobile companies have been doing with their various App Stores, Markets and App Worlds. So much so that the Foundation wants to encourage loads of the things, all bound up in an Application Warehouse.
The Symbian Foundation is tasked with maintaining the open source version of Nokia’s Symbian Operating System – Symbian^2 . With the first Symbian^2 devices due later this year, and the now universally accepted fact that no phone or mobile OS is complete without its very own application-hawking shopfront, the Symbian Foundation has announced its plans for the Application Warehouse.
Rather than simply launching a single app store, the Symbian Foundation plans to let other companies and developers open their own marketplaces which will operate under the Applcation Warehouse umbrella.
The Foundation will offer a central repository of signed apps and games, and provide a framework for other vendors. This should have the effect of maintaining some level of control and order to proceedings while avoiding some of the pitfalls of (e.g.) the Apple App Store having to make value judgements on what kind of code is allowed on their network.
Its an interesting idea, but the sort of set up that will need to be handled carefully if consumers are to avoid being sucked into a huge morass of duplicated apps and competing business models.
TBC | £tbc | Symbian Foundation (via The Register)
