Chipzilla snuggles up to Symbian

There were two objectives for Intel. One purpose was to show off that it has a handset reference design. Not just for Symbian but for the very latest version (9.1) plus the two major Symbian GUIs - UIQ 3 and Nokia Series 60 version 3.

The second objective was to show just how well handset software would run on its dedicated applications processor - the PXA270 - alongside its communications processor the PXA 9xx (previously known as Hermon).

A Symbian guru the INQ spoke to earlier claimed that with reference designs like this, 80 per cent of the effort involved in designing a smartphone is taken care of. Furthermore that last 20 per cent is exactly where the manufacturer supplies 'value add' in the shape of overall design features.

It was interesting to discover that while Hermon at present supports 3G for Europe and Asia, an EDGE compliant version for the Americas will follow shortly.

In order to produce the Symbian based reference designs, Intel had worked closely with Symbian 'boutique', Elektrobit. That way it got around myriads of software licensing issues.

A stand sitter also confessed that Chipzilla wasn't ready to show applications running on Monahans, even though it will eventually replace the PXA270.

The INQ was genuinely surprised by Chipzilla's enthusiasm for Symbian. Is it a key sector or merely an attempt to enter a niche which Texas Instruments has previously sewn up? µ