Testing Times

Posted: February 19th, 2010 | Author: The Morodo Team | Filed under: blog | 1 Comment »
Via Tomi Ahonen I discovered Mark Suster’s post App Is Crap. Mark argues that the app is a distraction from the main event in the browser. He’s right. The mobile web runtime environment could be delivering a whole lot more, and maybe it will with HTML5? Maybe it can already with Flash? When the network is fast enough and the device is truly open, the app will be dead. Until that time, it will be a closely guarded revenue generator in the value chain.
Just last week I received an email from the Symbian Foundation advising that Symbian Signed certification process is moving in-house, Third Party Approvals are no longer permitted. Symbian will be charging €120 a pop for signing approval, until now Test Houses such as NSTL, Mphasis and Sogeti, have priced out from €200 per app. Bravo to Symbian for realising a revenue stream, Apple should have made a tiered developer scheme with chargeable fast-track approvals available a long time ago, but this really does not sit well with the Foundation’s Open Source ethic. If the platform is Open, I should be able to pay any accredited expert to test my app and provide approvals based on published standards. Surely?
Nokia laid their cards on the table at MWC and without actually saying it made it clear that in their view Symbian has some years to run but the future is Meego. Sure, there is a lot of cool stuff coming for developers in Symbian^3, customers are going to love the fact that we can do more, but don’t palm us off on a nicer UI, better APIs and the illusion of Openess whilst maintaining a vested interest in the success of Nokia, the Ovi Store and Ovi’s own approval process.
Litigious words? Please don’t insult my intelligence by stating that the Symbian Foundation is independent of Nokia, who else is making Symbian smartphones of note?  Soon there will be more than one hundred Android devices on market, Symbian needs all the help it can get, we’d like to give it but we’d also like to draw on a mercenary army of expert, experienced and independent testers to do so.

costs more than my flatVia Tomi Ahonen I discovered Mark Suster’s post App Is Crap. Mark argues that the app is a distraction from the main event in the browser. He’s right. The mobile web runtime environment could be delivering a whole lot more, and maybe it will with HTML5? Maybe it can already with Flash? When the network is fast enough and the device is truly open, the app will be dead. Until that time, it will be a closely guarded revenue generator in the value chain.

Just last week I received an email from the Symbian Foundation advising that the Symbian Signed certification process is moving in-house, Third Party Approvals are no longer permitted. Symbian will be charging €120 a pop for signing approval, until now Test Houses such as NSTL, Mphasis and Sogeti, have priced out from €200 per app. Bravo to Symbian for realising a revenue stream, Apple should have made a tiered developer scheme with chargeable fast-track approvals available a long time ago, but this really does not sit well with the Foundation’s Open Source ethic. If the platform is Open, I should be able to pay any accredited expert to test my app and provide approvals based on published standards. Surely?

Nokia laid their cards on the table at MWC and without actually saying it, made it clear that in their view Symbian has some years to run, but the future is Meego. Sure, there is a lot of cool stuff coming for developers in Symbian^3, customers are going to love the fact that we can do more, but don’t palm us off on a nicer UI, better APIs and the illusion of Openess whilst maintaining a vested interest in the success of Nokia, the Ovi Store and Ovi’s own approval process.

Litigious words? Please don’t insult my intelligence by stating that the Symbian Foundation is culturally independent of Nokia, who else is making Symbian smartphones of note?  Soon there will be more than one hundred Android devices on market. Symbian needs all the help it can get, we’d like to give it but we’d also like to draw on a mercenary army of expert, experienced and independent testers to do so.

Image: Rohde & Schwarz

One Comment on “Testing Times”

  1. 1 Morodo Group Limited » Blog Archive » Update: Testing Times said at 7:04 am on March 1st, 2010:

    [...] very good news from the Symbian Foundation further to my 19th Feb post highlighting changes to the Symbian app approvals [...]

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