Table of contents

This page features a second-level table of contents for Smartphones and beyond.

This expanded table of contents is also available at the end of the e-book.

Links are provided below where at least part of the relevant section is included in the online excerpts in this site.

Foreword

Part I: Symbian anticipated

1. Learning from smartphones

2. Forecasting Symbian success

3. Before the beginning

  • It started with games
  • “The world’s first practical pocket computer”
  • The Sibo architecture
  • An epic overreach
  • System libraries and market disappointment
  • Starting again – and again
  • Starting again, again
  • Supporting developers
  • A change of agenda

4. The Protea runway

  • Strengths…
  • … and some weaknesses
  • Creating the runway for the Series 4
  • Designing Protea
  • Protea timescales

5. Die like IBM, or die like Apple?

6. Encountering the phone industry

  • First expectations of a market for smart phones
  • Snowball
  • The trouble with apps
  • The birth of Technical Consulting
  • The ARM connection
  • First encounters with Nokia
  • The ARM connection (continued)
  • From chilly to warm
  • Meeting the big chiefs
  • Formal strategy review
  • The slow, slow decline of Snowball
  • An alternative history: Philips becomes smartphone market leader

7. Death Star or Nova?

  • Living with secrets
  • The world is coming to an end
  • The Map phone
  • Growth pains – and growth costs
  • Sumo and SatNav
  • Multi-colour Bayou
  • Ten goals for 1998
  • The Unmentionable Thing
  • Thinking big
  • Nova
  • Psion regains its confidence
  • Summit at Nokia Manor
  • “To Symbian”
  • Alternative history: Psion builds a host of successful Symbian-based products

8. Roadmaps and overreach

  • The first Symbian roadmap
  • Motorola returns
  • Focus, not fritter
  • Options for growth
  • Ronneby
  • Cambridge
  • Alternative history: more focus on execution
  • Reaching towards the stars

9. The first successful smartphones

  • Extending EPOC
  • Roxette: conception
  • R380: delivery
  • Roxette: Analysis
  • ER5u
  • The four unexpected delays with any smartphone project
  • Roxette analysis: conclusion
  • Linda: conception
  • 9210: Delivery
  • Programme Management
  • May 17th
  • Shipping Linda
  • The legacy of the R380 and 9210

10. DFRDs in turmoil

  • The Symbian Manifesto
  • DFRDs introduced
  • DFRDs defined
  • Losing focus
  • Trying to pick favourites
  • Calypso: conception
  • Touch-driven DFRDs
  • Progress with Quartz
  • Quartz setbacks
  • The divergent path of Japan
  • Stork
  • Sakura
  • Pearls
  • Pivot ahead

Part II: Symbian ascending

11. The Nightingale pivot

  • Over-commitment
  • LPRcom
  • An unpleasant place to work
  • Seeking predictable deliveries
  • Seeking funding for upscaling
  • The Symbian Wireless Cluster
  • Towards a Symbian IPO
  • Improved financial discipline
  • Lack of competitiveness
  • The Symbian paradox
  • The Nightingale retreat
  • The pivot
  • No bag of bits
  • Alternative history: Significant additional investment

12. Designs by collaboration

  • The product design paradox
  • Palm as a Symbian partner?
  • Thin Quartz conceived
  • Pearl grinds to a standstill
  • Thin Quartz succeeds
  • Divesting Ronneby
  • The last Psion communicator
  • Hildon evolves
  • Hildon frustrations
  • Series 80 and Series 90
  • The origin of Series 60
  • Symbian’s reaction to Series 60
  • Alternative history: Pearl triumphs

13. Typhoon and other storm waves

  • Financial storm waves
  • Starling
  • A leadership team under stress
  • Valentine’s Day drama
  • New priorities
  • A new organisation
  • A new roadmap
  • Typhoon
  • Fragmentation pains
  • Calimero: conception
  • Typhoon delivers
  • Rhythm in Japan
  • The IPO delayed
  • The roughest storm of all

14. Predictability and agility

  • Drawbacks of predictability
  • The agile mindset
  • Symbian blame culture
  • Extending the matrix
  • Recommendations on improved feedback mechanisms
  • Inertia
  • Bureaucracy
  • Bureaucracy in context
  • Mercury
  • Leadership team evolution
  • Accelerating Time to Market
  • Battles that were lost
  • Alternative history: Stressed but not over-stressed

15. The near-miss merger

  • From Wizards to Bluefin
  • Learning from Samsung
  • Goals for Series 60
  • Motorola rethinks
  • Psion rethinks
  • Strategy vs. tactics
  • Psion rethinks (again)
  • Omega
  • Phoenix
  • Valhalla
  • Ambitions at Ruka
  • The constraints of realpolitik
  • Kingfisher
  • Alternative histories

16. Apps, apps, apps

  • Examples of killer apps
  • A small early victory for openness
  • Symbian Enterprise Advisory Council
  • Operator Review Board
  • Platform Security
  • Examples of mobile malware
  • Symbian Signed
  • PlatSec complications
  • Alternative solutions: Apple
  • A Symbian application store?
  • Alternative solutions: Google

17. The superphone experience

  • No nine day wonder
  • Web browser as killer app
  • The first Symbian web browser
  • Browser fragmentation
  • Nokia’s browser strategy
  • WebKit woes
  • Developer woes
  • Reactions to Nokia WebKit
  • The hazardous side-effect of focusing on lowering cost
  • Simplicity of design
  • Alternative history: Beyond the N95

18. Disruptions on all sides

  • Nokia looks at Linux
  • Human factors
  • Sprite
  • Throwing axes
  • Fixing the architecture – Core OS
  • S60 experiences disruption
  • Human factors (again)
  • Trolltech
  • Disrupting the UI
  • Sequoia and JAFFA
  • Dalvik arrives
  • Disrupting the operating system
  • Responding to the momentum of Linux
  • Street fighting

19. Google on the horizon

  • A different kind of competition
  • Google as a partner
  • Yet Another Linux Platform
  • The new Symbian journey
  • The World Class initiative
  • Construx
  • Sphinx
  • Bad news for Sphinx
  • Bad news for UIQ

20. UIQ’s final flurry

  • Sendo
  • Motorola’s dark project
  • Meatball
  • Linux in the shadows
  • A difficult marriage
  • Samsung platformisation
  • A hope for unification
  • Alternative history: Motorola supports S60 earlier

Part III: Symbian transcended

21. A new world of innovation

  • Struggles in North America
  • Mayflower
  • Pilgrim and Franklin
  • CDMA after Franklin
  • Alternative history: a product that operators could not refuse
  • Series 90 and Series 60
  • Alternative history: the UIQ option for Nokia
  • Open Innovation
  • Time for Rubicon
  • The shark egg case
  • Elsinore

22. The last supper

  • The Eclipse example
  • Eclipse – some warnings
  • Project Freedom
  • The last supper
  • Symbian 2.0
  • Enhancing the dream?

23. Too much openness

  • Open plans
  • Anticipating Qt
  • Limits to open disclosure
  • Relationship breakdown
  • First signs of trouble
  • The four beacons
  • Departures from the board
  • Rocket science chasms
  • Holes in the platform
  • Prioritising devices
  • No magic wand
  • Blaming Symbian
  • Market opinion

24. A divided foundation

  • The heart of innovation
  • The marketing conundrum
  • Little help from Nokia
  • A three-way division
  • No dialectics at the Bingham
  • Chinese drama
  • More time for… the future of technology
  • The foundation dissolves
  • Alternative history: a unified foundation

25. The merger that failed

  • Ocean
  • The vicious cycle of mediocrity
  • Dealing with technical debt
  • “What is wrong with Symbian?”
  • “What is wrong with Nokia?”
  • Fractured culture
  • Strategic debt
  • Sisu
  • Risk aversion
  • Alternative history: Symbian project speed-up

26. February 11th

  • The Burning Platform
  • MeeGo
  • Lankku
  • Competing ideas for change
  • Ecosystems
  • Steve Ballmer comes to London
  • The Osborne effect
  • Alternative history: platform co-existence
  • Conspiracy theory
  • Burning bridges
  • Windows Phone issues
  • Alternative history: a different CEO
  • Devices and ecosystems

27. Symbian’s greatest hits

  • The long path to profitability
  • Hits and misses, introduced
  • Patient investors
  • Deliveries against an incremental roadmap
  • Regular internal renewal
  • High calibre software personnel
  • Well executed acquisitions
  • Recognition of the profound importance of smartphones
  • Rapport with customer foresight groups
  • Openness to customisation
  • Ecosystem management
  • Independent commercial basis
  • Enabling competition

28. Alternative histories

  • Psion holds its confidence
  • Extra funding avoids the Nightingale pivot
  • Symbian supports S60 earlier
  • A more gradual company start-up
  • A better balance between predictability and speed
  • A more tolerant legal framework
  • A world-class web browser
  • A world-class touch interface
  • UIQ achieves scale
  • An OS with a proper bottom
  • An OS with more standard APIs
  • A less intrusive approach to security
  • A good solution for CDMA
  • A Symbian application store
  • Symbian brand name established
  • S60 and Symbian merge earlier
  • Motorola backs S60 earlier
  • Better devices rather than better services
  • A lean marriage of Qt and the Symbian kernel
  • Symbian Foundation achieves community momentum
  • A better financial basis for the Foundation
  • Nokia hires a new CEO earlier
  • Samsung flourishes with Symbian
  • An alternative view on alternative histories

29. The core smartphone skillset

  • Three dimensions
  • Platform
  • Market
  • Execution: Integration
  • Execution: Enterprise-scale Agile
  • Execution: Lean processes
  • Simplicity
  • The trends that propelled smartphone industry growth
  • Appendix: The nine Symbian passions
  • Beyond the Symbian passions

30. Visions beyond smartphones

  • Technology crossover
  • Obstacles to technology solutions
  • Wearable technology
  • Twenty opportunity areas
  • An example of technology acceleration
  • Eroom’s Law
  • Learning from failures
  • Creative destruction
  • The cost of complexity
  • Changing regulations
  • Computers transforming research
  • Network effects
  • Forthcoming crises
  • Changing mindset
  • Transhumanism
  • A manifesto for Humanity+
  • What’s next for smartphones?

Afterword

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