Symbian to develop mobile apps

[Ben]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8152443.stm

Symbian, the operating system on nearly half the world's smartphones, is to become involved in the development of mobile applications, or apps.

Symbian will be a one-stop location for app developers, standardising and testing software and then making it available to existing app storefronts.
Called Horizon, the approach follows the lead set by other operating system makers such as Microsoft and Apple.

The not-for-profit Symbian Foundation will launch the service in October.
The announcement of Horizon follows Apple's statement on Tuesday that its App Store has seen 1.5 billion app downloads in a year, showing that a significant market exists for a centralised source of application software.

Handset manufacturers, mobile network operators and independent sites have opened their own application stores, but Horizon will aim to provide a centralised, smooth route to market to solidify Symbian's place in an increasingly crowded operating system market.
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Funny, I rarely think of Symbian as having such massive market share these days. Still, this is a step in the right direction as part of 'new Symbian'. It'll need to do a lot more, though.