Symbian Foundation Backs Open Cloud Manifesto

The Symbian Foundation has thrown its weight behind the Open Cloud Manifesto, saying the manifesto can help lead to a more open cloud environment.

In a 1 July blog post, Ian McDonald, head of IT for Symbian, said, “With the popularity of cloud computing quickly rising there is a real need to ensure that the cloud is open and not a proprietary lock-in.”

Open Cloud

As such, Symbian has become an official supporter of the Open Cloud Manifesto. The tagline for the Open Cloud Manifesto is that it is “dedicated to the belief that the cloud should be open.” The manifesto outlines the challenges facing organisations that want to take advantage of the cloud.

A description of the manifesto on the Open Manifesto website defines it as follows:

“The Open Cloud Manifesto establishes a core set of principles to ensure that organisations will have freedom of choice, flexibility, and openness as they take advantage of cloud computing. While cloud computing has the potential to have a positive impact on organisations, there is also potential for lock-in and lost flexibility if appropriate open standards are not identified and adopted.”

McDonald said Symbian is a big user of cloud computing and will soon take even greater advantage of the cloud.

Passionately Open

Said McDonald in his post:

“Inside Symbian we use the cloud thanks to a wide range of providers – over twenty in fact – and we don’t even run our own file or email servers! Symbian Ideas, Symbian Horizon and this blog run on cloud infrastructure, and we have plans to shift nearly all our sites onto the cloud in the next few months.”

Moreover, McDonald said Symbian is an organisation that is passionate about being open. “The planning for our releases, the decision making processes (including the councils) and all our code are out in the open,” he said in the blog post. “As such we totally support the Open Cloud Manifesto which is working to ensure that different cloud offerings can work together and that there are open standards.”