This is the time when I look back and I post over 40 articles written about what is the best mobile phone show on earth. This time I didn't get to go, but all the effort that was done by everyone else, is portrayed in each of these articles, thanks to all! The articles are in date order, the oldest to newest one. Now you have something to do for the next "work" hour.

• 2008 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona looking promising
• Motorola's Mobile World Congress 08 teaser (Moto Z12?)
• Linux mobile platform ACCESS at Mobile World Congress
• Motorola Z12 ZiNE pictures leaked
• N96 and N78 show up!
• N96 and N78 pictures
• N78 a new N73
• N96 is more like a N95 16GB...Another N96 Preview-review
• Samsung G810 unveiled at MWC
• Google Android Picture Show
• LG KF700 preview
• What's the Xperia X1 after all?
• N78 and N96 live on video!
• Sony Ericsson G900 with Touch Autofocus
• N96 and N78 hands on video
• S60 touch UI more videos...no protos
• N96 LED flash demonstration
• iRiver's ugly phone gets a review
• LG KT610 a competitor for E90?
• W980...and no, it's not a Photoshop!
• Toshiba G910 a bit off-target
• Surround sound coming to mobile phones
• Reviewing the Mobile World Congress, let's continue with SE G700
• SE C702, almost a smartphone!
• C902, another high-range non smartphone
• Sony Ericsson Z770, not so low end
• LG KF700, the smart slider
• LG KF600 wasting space?
• LG KF510, mixed phone?
• KM500 low-end music dedicated phone
• LG KM710 super music player
• iMate at Mobile World Congress, Ultimate 9502 a Sidekick imitation
• iMate Ultimate 8502 a competitive smartphone
• i-mate Ultimate 8150 shows its power
• i-mate Ultimate 6150 ugly but powerful
• N82 with another face: Nokia 6220 Classic
• Nokia 6210 Navigator: The real Navigator
• Motorola Z6w packs Linux and WiFi
• ROKR E8 Motorola's bet in the music industry
• Motorola U9 a music competitor?
• Motorola RIZR Z10, that's we get?
• Motorola W181 for the low-end market
• Nokia E90 v2 in MWC?
• Samsung F480: TouchWIZ is here
• Samsung P960 joins DVB-h war
• Samsung F400: Why hide the speakers?
• Live pictures and video of N96

The guys at Engadget posted tons of pictures on a prototype where Google showed off their Linux distribution, which is more famously known by Google Android:

Check them out here

Having an Open Source Operating System for mobiles might seem a challenge for Symbian...or maybe not.

You could compare it to Windows and Linux (and its distributions). Windows isn't Open Source but got a hefty advantage over Linux, Linux is mainly used in hosting servers and research centres, and not that much in homes. We could blame this on the distributors not having done enough publicity and not making Linux easy enough. This will not be the case of Google Android, which is basically another Linux distribution. They have won the hearts of more than 40 companies such as HTC, and also many developers thanks to their 10 million Dollars prize contest.

For developers it might seem a dream come true, but I don't think it's that good. What many people are expecting is an Operating System that can be moulded easily but these people are forgetting what Open Source really means. It means to have a public source code. This doesn't mean we can grab Google Android, remove unwanted code and personalize it. Unless Google actually comes out with a “NSU” type of program with self-uploadable firmwares, and also a SDK that allows full customization, this won't be possible.

What Bob said in his podcast for The Way We Live Next was no lie and certainly no news to anyone in the Symbian community, but what I guess is that many people didn't fully realize.

If you focus on the Operating System rather than on the hardware on S60 phones, you will see it for yourself, it was happening on my old 6600 and now its happening on my N95.

Symbians evolve, or atleast their software does. For enthusiasts and sometimes for other regular users, the handset is never the end product, it's always changing and constantly improving.

That is how Nokia managed to win our hearts, they build a software platform which keeps on molding depending on what developers release.

There are definitely tons of examples of this. The most recent one is the Accelerometer API implementation, many brilliant programmers such as Samir Oueldi and Tong Ren came up with programs such as RotateMe, Nokmote, ShutUp, FlipSilent, and I don't have any doubt that more are to come.

If you want to go back to OS7, you can talk about the Nokia 6600 and phones alike, programs such as Start Menu imitating Windows' Start Menu, Video console emulators such as PicoDrive and many others.

Smartphones are in fact computers with reduced power, and they do have the same possibilites such as a Windows has.

What Nokia has to watch out is for the upcoming Google Android, for software enthusiasts this could be the next best thing as the Operating System itself is moldable, because it's Open Source. Maybe a S60 Open Source could be the answer to fight against the Android?

The Open Source S60 could be better because Linux was initially intended for computers, and Symbian is truly smartphone dedicated. Most clients aren't software maniacs, so Nokia and the Symbian community itself won't change just because of competition, but they will open many of their doors to programmers hungry for customization.

The video demonstrated on Youtube by Google Android Team was clear to me. This is simply a phone with all Google Apps and a pint of Touch UI.

If you can see in the video, you will notice the transitions and the speed that everything such as contacts, maps, etc loads, this is equal to what we saw from Nokia on their Touch UI video, and somewhat the same what the Apple iPhone does.

A lot of web was focused naturally because Google is really a web based company. One thing that was clear from Steve Horowitz, the Engineering director, is that Google is not developing a GPhone, for the simple fact that if they develop the OS, many other companies will use it, making Google much widely used.

A good thing that I said about this in a previous post is that even though Google creates the illusion of handing 10million USD to the best programmers, the cost is really low because it's an Open Source OS, not many licenses, patents, and it is not necessary to pay any company to use their software, everything is pretty much "Googled".

If you look in Android blog, you can see that the deadline is 3 March so Google just has to sit back and relax until some small time genius comes up with a good app. Of course these 10 million aren't just to get the apps developed, they are for publicity, I mean Google already has every single app they need.

And to even create more publicity, Google teases us with Quake, which to tell the truth, actually looks yummy...

Of course March also coincides with the decision of FCC on the 700MHz sprectrum bid, it is suppose to end in January, but usual delays will appear. One way or another Google is trying to take over the markets.