If you can bypass the wireless network, then you can make phone calls almost for free,

[So what does the growth at Taproot tell us about the overall Symbian device ecosystem?] We really only see a sub-section of the market, ... We currently make our living out of 5 to 10 customers, but this is twice as many customers as we had last year. Perhaps the most significant sign we see is that our semi-conductor partners, who see a broader section cross section of the customer base, have clearly recognised the value of the smartphone market and the features and capabilities that are pulled together by Symbian OS. Really you just have to look at the numbers to see Symbian is making its play.

Over the next few years lower cost regions of the world are clearly going to offer certain efficiencies in developing code and that is just a fact of life that we have to deal with. Right now we have a smart bunch of people here who are focused and know what they are doing in a relativity niche area. I believe there is strong role for a company like ours; creating leading edge technology and adding value to the larger community.

[Finding experienced staff still remains Taproot's biggest challenge and the single largest constraint on growth. Even so Taproot is now the largest independent Symbian OS software development organisation in North America. To achieve this it has pulled in people from all over the world including Europe, Asia, and North America. As well as employing experienced staff Taproot has also hired graduate students, which they have trained themselves.] I think, from a global perspective, skilled staff is one of biggest challenges for the Symbian ecosystem, ... Not just for us but Symbian, all the handset manufactures and ISVs, it is still a challenge.

We believe that WiFi is not just another Bluetooth or infrared port, ... It is foundational to what people will be doing with smartphones in the future. While Voice over IP is sometimes seen as a threat to operators' revenue streams it is also a big opportunity. It allows them to address new and emerging markets, in different sectors of the industry. Beyond VoIP, we see streaming media and interactive gaming as the other areas to benefit from WiFi.

Symbian's history and pedigree has always been around the mobile phone, ... Other operating systems have migrated from a desk top world where there has been LAN connectivity for sometime. Creating WLAN technology for Symbian OS meant we had to create a number of new components, in the areas of network discovery and security. All in all we invested over 50 man years of programming in the development. When it is added to Symbian OS it accounts for almost 10% of the total firmware footprint.