The Symbian Foundation took the opportunity to announce a new publisher program at the Symbian Exchange and Exposition this week, which is aimed at streamlining and maximising game companies' access to digital outlets.

Symbian Horizon promises to help developers build applications, position them in a series of global stores and to provide marketing support.

Previously, the platform has come under criticism for the complex and costly process involved in becoming an authorised developer and putting out signed games, which the Foundation hopes to address with this new Symbian Horizon program.

“We recognise that developers face many challenges in bringing their products to market on Symbian devices,” said Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation. “In particular, the diversity of application stores in our ecosystem increases the burden on developers by requiring multiple submission and review processes.

"But this diversity can also offer an advantage over competitors’ closed systems, where applications sometimes receive arbitrary or commercially motivated rejections. Symbian Horizon retains this advantage while reducing the burden by becoming a conduit to multiple stores, helping developers reach the largest global mobile market in the world more efficiently.”

The program begins by immediately allowing developers to have their signed applications appear in the Symbian Horizon Directory free of charge. The signing process is also due to be revised, with simpler access to applications and developer profiles.

The program will then begin to increase the number of applications processed through the Symbian Signed system. These processed games and apps will then be submitted to the Horizon directory and all participating app stores automatically, and at no cost to the developer. A comprehensive program designed to process thousands of applications will then be launched in 2010.

With the simple and inexpensive access to rival systems such as the iPhone's App Store and Android Marketplace, the Symbian Horizon program should hopefully bring the platform back in line with the highly competitive smartphone market.

For more information, visit www.symbian.org.