Nokia added a significant page to the rapidly evolving smartphone industry with the introduction today of the 3rd generation of its Series 60 interface. Series 60, used in the lion’s share of smartphones, runs on top of the Symbian operating system (OS)—the most popular platform for advanced handsets.

When Symbian upgraded its eponymous OS two weeks ago to version 9.0, it revealed only part of the platform's future. Most manufacturers who build Symbian-based handsets add a second interface layer (like Series 60, but sometimes UIQ) to provide important functions.

Nokia developed Series 60 3rd Edition with Symbian OS v9.0 in mind.

Symbian upgraded the OS to help manufacturers churn out smartphones more quickly and cheaply—at the same time as making them less expensive, smaller, and more powerful for consumers, as well as better supporters of revenue-generating services, content, and applications for wireless carriers.

For Nokia, Series 60 3rd Edition's new features focus on enhanced multimedia and enterprise functionality (e.g. a new security framework and improved calendar, synchronization, and device management), sustainable application business support, modern customization enablers, and an improved platform architecture and framework.

As with Symbian's OS upgrade, Nokia wants to expand the range, type, and cost of smartphones available for its platform.

Nokia VP of mobile software sales and marketing Antti Vasara declared, "The Series 60 3rd Edition significantly enforces our strategy to support smartphone evolution towards different segments of the consumer mass market and enterprise. There will be a clear move towards multiple device segments where different user and market needs will drive the development."

With that in mind, Series 60 3rd Edition bundles a new music player with personalized themes and skins, plus OMA Digital Rights Management (DRM) v2.0 compatibility for support of richer media content and protection. Future Series 60 smartphones will also be able to function as a normal USB flash memory stick to ease the transfer of songs, for example, from PC to handset.

Nokia said operators will be able to deploy new services and create a stronger branded interface for subscribers through additons to Series 60's customization capabilities for building and integrating operator specific service applications, feature variation, service settings, and user interface look and feel.

The platform architecture overhaul adds support for wider range of hardware configurations, including single and dual-chip hardware architectures, and improved performance. It is intended to let manufacturers target devices for specific market segments.

For developers, the addition of location awareness, Web Services, and Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) support aims to assist with the creation of more compelling applications and content.

Although Symbian OS v9.0 is in licensee hands now, manufactures won't receive Series 60 3rd Edition until the middle of the year. Expect handsets to shipping with both the platform and interface during the second half of 2005.

The Numbers Game
Symbian reports 14.38 million smartphones sold last year running its eponymous OS compared to less than half that amount, 6.67 million, in 2003.

More than a third of those handsets, 5.6 million, sold in fourth quarter alone, 2.5 million of those in December. Close to 25 million Symbian phones have shipped since the company’s inception in June 1998.

Nokia predicts it will have shipped approximately 20 million Series 60 based devices by the end of February. Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sendo, among others also license the platform.