Product differentiation isn't just a matter of operating system design. EPOC is delivered with a rich set of applications and all the tools that 3rd party developers and OEMs need to write their own. Even though WIDs are small and mobile, they can offer facilities as rich as those on desktop computers in addition to basics such as voice and data communication. The OS has to support both conventional and mobile computing paradigms, and developers need knowledge of both. Supporting standards that they may already know or can easily learn from a multitude of sources is necessary.
Standards also make the platform more open and hence attract more developers.
WIDs are on the verge of becoming mass market. For the industry to deliver products that satisfy the many users it is targeting, it has to produce devices with an operating system engineered to take into account the key functional demands of this emerging market. To fit in the limited amount of memory a small WID may have, the operating system must be compact. However, as we have seen, it must still provide a rich set of functionality. Symbian is dedicated to wireless information devices and its EPOC operating system has been designed to meet the requirements of the WID market.