So What's The Exposium All About?
Put simply, every company who has something to do with Symbian OS is going to be in one place, at the London's ExCeL Centre in the Docklands, over the two days that the Symbian Exposium will be running. From the handset manufacturers, the network providers, and Symbian themselves, to the software companies, programmers, chip manufacturers, the fans, and the people who write about Symbian OS, they'll all be there.
What happens when you put all these people together, and get them to talk to each other? Well, things happen. Deals get put together. Ideas form themselves and Symbian OS goes from strength to strength. If you want to know what really powers Symbian OS, then you need to be at the Exposium.
How Do I Get In?
Unlike the 2003 Exposium, this year's Expo is free to enter as long as you pre-register on the Exposium Website – which is a relatively painless procedure. Once you do that, it's just a matter of turning up on the day, and (we're making an educated guest here), queue up at the Front Desk to get your badge for the day. There are some things that do cost a bit extra, but if you're on a budget then you'll still see more than you can possibly take in over the two days.
What's There To See
Leading up to the the Exposium, we're going to take a look at some of the main areas you can go to, and give you an idea of where to head for first - we suspect that for a lot of our readers, attending the Exposium could be your first trade show, and for the old nags here is a useful reminder!
Exhibition Floor
Well, first of all it's an exhibition, so there's a massive number of stands from companies involved in Symbian OS, and you'll be surprised by the variety. Don't forget to stop by the All About Symbian stand and say hi to Rafe, Ewan and the rest of the team.
Keynotes
Unlike other years, the keynote this year is a Panel discussion, with Gary Cohen (IBM), Miles Flint (Sony Ericsson), David Levin (Symbian) and Rene Schuster (Vodafone). While the keynote hall is invitation only (so no sneaking in any unrehearsed questions?) it will be broadcast to the other seminar theatres and around the exhibition hall so we can all hear what's going on with Symbian OS.
Seminars
The free seminars are where you're going to get the most information on Symbian OS in a series of short presentations (up to an hour long), in the two halls located on the floor. The tracks are Developer Seminars, Enterprise Seminars, Marketing Applications and Symbian OS User Interface.
Training
Now, not everything is free, if there are certain things youu want to see or attend (in this case the numerous Training Sessions) then you or your company are going to have to pay a little bit extra for that. So the deep and intensive sessions on Java, C++, OPL, and other prgramming topics aren't included in the entry price, but are well worth attending if you want to know more and really learn your stuff.
News From The Floor
Along with coverage from All About Symbian, Symbian One will be moblogging from the floor as well. So if you can't be there, you can catch all the news between the two sites, along with interviews, commentary and editorial from the AAS team.
See you there!
Part two of our preview looks at the seminars available, and what we reckon the best seminars will be.