The speculation started Tuesday afternoon as the Symbian Foundation's Twitter account chirped up a rather mysterious message...
Symbian: #symbiancountdown 108
Pretty sneaky, if I say so myself. They must have known that it would start the chattering classes off, to see if they could work out what it could mean. Is it a countdown to something huge? A little note to themselves? A rogue post from Gravity? We do know that it was intentional, Symbian have answered some of the people asking what it is... and many sites are now looking to make their best guess on what 108 is.
And we've got a few ideas of our own. Well, I have, at least....
Countdown has its own page on the Symbian site (http://countdown.symbian.org/), so it's fair to say that this is something major. The Symbian Foundation now has a rolling cycle of product releases, so unless they're ready to jump the gun, it's not going to be code additions. The plan for many a year has always been slow and steady, with not too many surprises.
Knowing that, perhaps the significance isn't a countdown as such. By putting that reference at the start they could be putting in just a touch of distraction towards a time and away from the number? So how significant is 108? Could it be a number of new partners? That would have some literary significance as Homer, during his Odyssey, had 108 suitors coveting his wife. Who's coveting Symbian and their market at the moment?
Apple! That's it, Apple is joining the Foundation!
Go on, for a minute you thought that was a good idea. Didn't you? Steve Jobs walking out on stage this afternoon to launch a Symbian-powered tablet. After all, Shakespeare's Sonnet 108 is all about Will's love for a young man – Symbian definitely want to get involved with the early stage tech companies as well as the established players.
Except that Apple are happy with their iPhone OS, and it's likely to be powering said tablet. Okay, back to the drawing board, although I still think that the British sense of fair play means that there is going to be at least one clue in plain sight. So what else is 108?
- Class 108 DMU
A now retired British Rail train that used to cover most of the commuter routes in the UK
- Officer Down or in Danger
Strictly 10-8, it's a radio call-sign similar to the 10-4 (understood), that Lee Williams remembers from watching "TJ Hooker".
- Undocumented Source Code Comments
Sitting in the HTML on the countdown page is <!-- if you're looking for a secret, here's one: 108 ->. Well yes, we know it's a secret, we just want to know if it's a holiday or Dusty Bin!
- Numerology
There's something special about the number 108. It's the hyperfactorial of 3 (i.e. 11 + 22 + 33). Which looks spookily like Symbian, Symbian^2 and Symbian ^3.
Time will tell, but they're not saying if that's in a few hours, days or weeks. What is clear is that we know something is up. Symbian have rarely raised expectations like this in public, but they've always been encouraged to be a bit more proactive in marketing themselves. Looks like they've taken that message onboard with this message. Now we wait.
-- Ewan Spence, Jan 2010.
PS: Lots of theories on Twitter, we're sure that there are a lot more we've missed. Let us know your favourites in the comments!
PPS: Nuts, it's dropped down to 61 now (see here)... er... it's the 18th prime number?