SymSMB Now Owned By Nokia
I caught this thread over at HowardForums today, it appears as though Nokia has taken ownership of the SymSMB application that we’ve been meaning to review for a while. If you aren’t familiar, SymSMB is a tool that allows you to do all sorts of things within WiFi networks, such as browse network folders and files. It’s really a comprehensive tool, with a pretty big feature set.
It appears as though 2 of the developers at Telexy Networks, who helped develop SymSMB, are also currently employed full-time at Nokia. As part of Nokia’s employment agreement, ‘All Proprietary Property which Employee may develop in the course of employment with Company, whether alone or jointly with others, shall be the exclusive property of company…‘ Thus, Nokia has claimed ownership of all rights over SymSMB.
The company’s statement, while somewhat sad, holds at least a bit of promise, that obviously Nokia sees the value of SymSMB and its abilities, and hopefully we’ll see the full integration of this tool into future S60 products, or perhaps even Nokia will simply rebrand it and offer it as a free download, similar to Nokia Chat or Nokia Friend View.
We wish the best on the team at Telexy, and hope that they will keep Symbian-Guru in the loop on any future ventures they take, as I’m sure they’ll be just as solid as SymSMB. You can have your say about the situation in the Telexy forums, or if you have a suggestion for a new application/development they might persue (and you DON’T work for Nokia), you can shoot them an email here.
I agree 300% that Nokia *should* have acted better by offering some sort of a financial deal. However, they certainly did not *steal* anything, at least from a legal standpoint.
I also don't see why Nokia would go through the negative PR to take control of the app without having future plans, or at least seeing some value in it. I mean, given that SymSMB was released as a fully Symbian Signed application, and was commercial (meaning that consumers paid for it), in every way, it only served to build up the S60 community, from every aspect/standpoint.
Nobody 'steals' anything that's not worth something. It's not like SymSMB directly competes with any existing Nokia technology/application, so they're not looking to eliminate competition in any way. What gain does Nokia achieve, if you're correct that their intention is purely to destroy the software?
It reminds me quite of the Home Media Server on the N82, but with lots and lots of more features. (So comparing it to Home Media Server is not quite doing it justice)
I was not quite able to successfully share my files from my mobile to my laptop (using Microsoft Vista). The other way around I was able to access files (copy, read, execute etc.) from my mobile on my laptop.
Anyway that explains why their website was down about a week ago as I was planning to read more about changes in the version 4.0 of the software.
I just hope that Nokia for once don't really mess up such a good product.
Currently I can't say that I'm quite impressed with their overall releases of new softwares.
Seems like they are not having a quite unified or targeted strategy.
By that I mean like Nokia Chat and Nokia Friend View does basically the same thing, in addition they are going to release Vine soon.
To have two (three?) similar applications doing the same thing is in my opinion like "shooting themselves in the foot".
Talking about Vine, it seems as though the company Psiloc is trying on something similar which they've called Emoroom
I have contacted Telexy and was told that officially there is NO ANY DOCUMENTS exists suggesting that Nokia has taken the ownership of SymSMB. Also, you may contact Nokia and ask them directly if they have the legal ownership rights for this software.
In the past 4 months I have contacted Nokia about SymSMB at least 3 times and I got responses suggesting that with all my requests about SymSMB I should contact ... guess who? - Telexy (www.telexy.com) !
Does it looks that these are the answers from company that has taken ownership for this software?
So far, it looks like that two sides got some different points of view in this situation.
However, having different points of view doesn't mean that ownership has changed.