Nokia’s Symbian-based communicators managed to gain an almost cult-like following right from their release - the cultists probably felt about the 9210 like Apple freaks feel about the iPhone. Right along that came Series 80(EPOC without touchscreen)…and Nokia pushed out model after model, making good money with each. The world was beautiful - until the 7650 was released.
The 7650 was the first candybar phone that was truly programmable(it is in the Austrian technical museum - photo coming soon)…and ran another operating system - Series 60. The 7650 caught on like wildfire(finally a phone where good games could be made for) - and the rest is more-less history. In fact, Nokia has even managed to convince licensees to purchase a licence for the OS from a competitor in the device segment - Palm had to split up for that.
While S60 thrived, Series 80 remained a more-less isolated operating system that lived in Nokia’s Communicator series. Some applications were available, but Series 60 has had far more. When the E61 came along, S60 application developers showed that they can adapt their apps to horizontal screens…so why keep Series 80 alive?
Palm recently was in a similar situation, and chose to can an already-finished, shipment-ready product(the Foleo) in order to keep their platforms “clean”. Developers hate having to rewrite code - and having two platforms with just marginal differences is a sure-fire way to annoy developers. Palm and Nokia both took a long time to figure this out, but finally came to the same conclusion: having two platforms is bad for developers.
Thus, Nokia did the only right thing - kick Series 80. Developers who currently own Series 80 apps have a bit of rewriting ahead of them - but as a benefit, they can now target a much bigger market segment. S60 developers, on the other hand, now have the choice of adapting their apps for “widescreen boxen” to leverage E90 sales.
Of course, existing Series 80 users and developers have troubles ahead of them in the near future, with beta software and other immaturity signs - but IMHO, everyone will benefit in the end. Consumers can pick choose from a bigger portfolio of applications; developers have less work to do; Nokia needs to support but one platform. Everybody benefits - it IMHO was the best choice!
