Dr. David Wood reveals Symbian's Cambridge relaunch

Dr. David Wood knows a thing or two about Symbian, the mobile operating system that used to dominate the planet, not least because he co-founded and held various leadership positions across many years there.

I smiled broadly as I read his latest post on LinkedIn this week where he announced that the Symbian sign (pictured above) now has a new home. It was, for about 13 years, sat in David's garage. Before that, it adorned the HQ of Symbian for about 10 years (2-6 Boundary Row, near Waterloo, London).

Well, the sign itself is now moving to the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge.

And that's a good thing. Anything that helps shine a light on the role of the organisation is a good thing.

Symbian played an extensive role in helping shape mobile communications as we know them today. Indeed, anyone over the age of thirty-something probably was a user of the technology that Dr. David and team developed. Indeed, the technology, the methodologies (and, one imagines, some patents!) lives on today in many of the devices in our pockets.

If Symbian is a bit of an unknown to you, its perhaps useful to think of it simplistically as the operating system of Nokia phones – but that is to dramatically simplify!

Indeed, if you'd like to know more about the size and scale of Symbian, you might check out one of the largest mobile websites on the planet at the time covering Symbian: All About Symbian, founded by Rafe Blandford (his website still has a Jaiku link). The website is still online and a cursory flick through will show you just how much Symbian meant in the marketplace during its prime years.

Those were the days.

Anyway: Nice post David and it is really good to hear the sign will get a well deserved new home at the Centre for Computing History museum!