America Online is taking its instant messaging technology
from the desktop to a variety of devices based on the Symbian wireless
operating system.
Symbian and America Online say they will work together on providing a
variety of wireless media and messaging services on next generation smart
phones based on Symbian’s operating system.
America Online said it has joined Symbian’s Platinum partner program and
will develop a variety of wireless instant messaging services that will run
on Symbian-based devices. Those services are expected to combine
technologies, including AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ and recently-acquired T9
Text Input, a company that specializes in predictive text input software.
“Instant messaging is one of AOL’s most popular products and what they are
doing with Symbian is bringing a successful desktop product and migrating it
to the cell phone environment,” says Martin Reynolds, technology analyst at
Gartner.
In addition to wireless messaging services, America Online also plans to
develop what it calls “content-based services and applications” for the
Symbian operating system. Those applications could run on a variety of
different devices. Motorola , Nokia
,
Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson are among the Symbian partners that are
building wireless devices that will run on the Symbian OS.
“What AOL is doing is to bring instant messaging to a standardized platform,
which will make it easier to use IM on mobile devices,” says Reynolds.
“Most phones today are not based on either the Symbian or PocketPC operating
systems, and are fairly dumb and do not have particularly sophisticated
interfaces. But the next generation of phones coming out from the Symbian
hardware partners will have better interfaces and will be more sophisticated
and able to run multimedia wireless services,” Reynolds said.
AOL’s decision to join the Symbian partner program is also a step towards
extending its instant messaging lead on the desktop to emerging wireless
devices.
“Symbian is ahead of Microsoft’s PocketPC smart phones. Microsoft’s instant
messenger on the PocketPC exists, but on a much smaller scale than Symbian.
But I expect Microsoft to quickly advance its wireless messaging strategy,”
Reynolds added.
“Symbian has small footprint and it’s a simpler operating system, than
Microsoft’s PocketPC, so this means that AOL’s instant message product will
be on more phones, more quickly,” Reynolds said.
