Nokia: The Future of QT/Symbian Developers

We’ve heard of longterm partnership news between Nokia and Microsoft announced a few days ago and become sensational in internet world up until now. The long term agreement stated that Nokia will use Windows Phone 7 operating system in its smartphone device and decided not to use Symbian as has been done before.

Reaction from technology industry varies between the ones who gladly welcome Nokia’s decision to use better OS than Symbian while others upset thinking that Nokia left QT and Symbian’s application developer community that Nokia had built.

The agreement has raised many speculations to the extent that there’d been anti-trust between Stephen Elop who was a Microsoft executive and apparently is 7th of the largest share holder in Microsoft. Being proven that financially Elop own some shares in Microsoft and is a CEO in Nokia, does it mean that there is Antitrust? Absolutely not. The way I look at it, this is an advantage for Nokia and Microsoft, because certainly this step was agreed by Nokia’s Board of Directors as one of beneficial actions for Nokia. Elop’s position in Microsoft turns out to be one of the factors that smoothened Microsoft and Nokia’s partnership. But, is it a conflict of interest? That, is possible.

Not to mention rumors which say that Stephen Elop being there as Nokia’s CEO is coerced by request from investor who want Nokia to be led by Elop and not Anssi Vanjoki who was then a strong candidate to replace the previous CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. Of course Nokia denied this rumour and stated that Stephen Elop completely merit their qualification and requirement to be CEO for the Finland cellular telephone company.

Anxiety is also creeping up to developer level, especially QT developer community built and developed by Nokia, moreover several weeks ago Nokia organized 2 workshop events for QT developer in Jakarta and Bandung which in a glance showed its commitment in developing this community. One of QT developers in Indonesia whom I happened to know personally is Didiet Noor from Mijix, and below is his comment:

With Nokia using WP7, it will close the opportunity to submit Apps to Windows Phone 7 Market Place for Indonesian developers. This means Nokia just added new barrier for Indonesian developers. While in Ovi it is the other way around, in Ovi you can sell free and paid apps from Indonesia. And, if I’m not mistaken, AppStore allowed submission from Indonesia. So I wonder why it’s not this way in MSFT.

The announcement from MicroNokia is actually quite a shock because I thought Nokia will push MeeGo. WP7’s features are still lagging far behind Symbian, even iPhone/Android. I was just thinking that Qt will be eliminated from Nokia’s line of business. There will be plenty of layoffs from Qt’s people, or Qt will be sold to other company And by cutting of Meego, partnership with Intel will be hurt. Nobody will advantage here except MSFT. Another thing, this Qt problem, I was actually hoping Nexian will buy it, post Nokia, so Nexian can create their own phone and OS, because by looking at its journey, I think they’re capable to operate Qt. But it’s just a wish.

Didiet had a point there, QT/Symbian is a very powerful platform and instead of being uncared of it will be better if it is sold to a god vendor, the one which is capable to take good care of it. Maybe selling it to competitor, but I think it will be better instead of turning it into open source project and relying on community as main developer.

Nokia seem to try to reduce confusions between its developers who felt betrayed and left behind. It seems that Symbian and QT’s future look bleak, especially with diminishing interest from developer to try and work more on QT/Symbian. This paranoia isn’t without a cause, if Nokia doesn’t believe in QT/Symbian, what makes developers believe in it? Narendra Wicaksono, Indonesia Marketing Developer Manager (which happened to have worked with Microsoft) commented on developers’ anxiety to develop QT base application:

Considering Nokia and Microsoft’s partnership is applicable only for smart phone, Nokia is certainly still focusing on Symbian platform. We will never leave developers who’d invested in Nokia’s platform and we will continue connecting developer with opportunities available in Nokia’s platform now and in the future.

From my point of view, it is quite difficult for Nokia to win battle of OS for smart phone with Symbian/QT. This difficulty can be from core-OS development side as well as difficulties for developers to develop QT/Symbian based application. QT platform itself can be said to have larger portion because it reaches Linux based mid-low devices while Symbian is more suitable for mid-up smart phone. Actually the one more head to head with WP7 is Symbian, which to be honest is still lagging far behind compared to other smart phone’s platform.

QT and Symbian’s future is still to be determined by whether Nokia keeps its promise to maintain and foster the developers; judging from smart phone’s development nowadays, developer is valuable asset and should be maintained. SO according to you, is it better to directly switch to MSTF platform or iPhone/Android instead? Rather than anxious about the uncertainty of QT/Symbian’s future?

Translated by: Nita Sellya.