Yesterday's MacWorld Keynote from Steve Jobs (I mean, a 512mb MP3 Player and an ITX Mini Clone... where's the iNewton?) has got me thinking - why do Apple have such presence, even with non-Mac fans? Is this something Symbian are missing out? Read on...

Everyone who prays to Apple was on tenterhooks yesterday for Steve Jobs MacWorld Keynote. And most of the non-Apple worshippers were watching as well (or at least, trying to keep up on the various websites that made brave attempts at real time coverage). Irrespective of Apple's volume of sales, or number of users, the amount of buzz generated yet again showed Apple punching with the big boys. But not the biggest. With only 14 million OSX users, they're outnumbered almost 2 to 1 by Symbian OS devices. So why can't Symbian generate the same sort of excitement? Cutting edge phones, wi-fi, music devices, every ingredient to make the gadget-hounds salivate is in the OS.

Fairly or unfairly, I'm going to put this down to the CEO. David Levin (and to a certain extent Colly Myers before him) have done a good job taking what was a division of Psion (Psion Software) and grown it to the size it is today. That's a lot of management, guidance and care. But Symbian is past the forming stage, and needs to start storming. Symbian needs passion, needs energy and needs all that to be projected outside of the walls of Symbian and into the general public, the tech heads, and every electronics company this side of Redmond.

In short, I think Symbian needs a CEO that can pull off the "One More Thing" trick at the Symbian Expos.

The Expo (due again October 2005 we assume) should be the same high water mark of the Symbian Year as MacWorld is. There should be product announcements, predictions, energy, passion and drive. What we don't need at the biggest Symbian event of the year is a shareholders report and a nice graph going up the way.

Now okay, the Symbian keynote is never going to be one man and one company. It need Nokia, Sony Ericsson and the other partners on the stage - so they can demo their new products, and make everyone salivate over something as basic as a 512mb Flash MP3 player with no LCD screen (seesh). But my point is Symbian is the glue in all these companies, it's at the base of all the devices, it needs to be evangelising, shouting and making everyone proud to have a Symbian device.

The partners pay Symbian $5 a phone. They also have the OMA DRM Alliance $1 a phone. Unless Symbian can be seen to be an essential part of the handset, and not a commodity added on to the shopping list. They need to build a community themselves, a name, a brand... dare I mention "Intel Inside" and ask where "Symbian Inside" is?

David Levin will be standing down as CEO of Symbian in late March. The Symbian Board needs to take a long hard look at who they appoint to the CEO role. With the recent announcement of Sir Peter Gershon as the Chairman (a man with extensive organisational experience) they don't need another dry face from "The City" to lead Symbian. We need some dynamic, entertaining, captivating personality that people want to follow and be inspired by. The Board and The Managers (and to a certain extent the senior staff) of Symbian know exactly what is needed code wise. It's time to choose someone who complements these skills, not duplicates them.

It's time for a leader that everyone in the world can get behind, not just those inside the business. It’s time to be proud of Symbian.