For years now, Atraware has been one of best-selling and most respected developers of games for the Palm OS, Pocket PC and Windows Smartphone platforms. After a period of sitting back and waiting to see how the market develops, it appears the company is finally ready to dip its toes in Symbian waters, which happens to be the most popular smartphone platforms in the world.

This according to a blog posting by Astraware CTO David Oakley, who admitted that the mobile software house hinted at the possibility of creating Symbian product, but, until now, wasn't ready to publicly say anything definitive.

The stated reasons of Astraware hesitance: a limited number of hands can do only so many things, hence keeping current Palm OS and Windows customers satisfied has been the company’s priority; the market size for Symbian games didn't seem large enough; and - perhaps most importantly of all - it was too expensive to port existing games to older versions of the Symbian platform.

With the development of Symbian OS v9, along with the S60 3rd Edition - created by Nokia and used in most its smartphones, among others - and UIQ 3 - now owned by Sony Ericsson and used in its smartphones - interfaces, Astraware has taken a second look at the mobile platform and likes what it sees.

(Manufacturers who build Symbian-based handsets add a second interface layer-S60 interface (non-touch screen), but sometimes UIQ (touch screens)-to provide some of their advanced handsets' functionality, look, and feel. So, in essence - to use a housing metaphor - Symbian is the foundation, plumbing, and electrical system; the interface is the furnishings and appliances; and the hardware is the frame upon which a smartphone is built.)

What this means is Astraware plans to release a small number of games for the Symbian platform in 2007, according to Oakly. He added, "We'll be using them to get a better feel of which titles from our complete games catalogue we should port across."

Some of Astraware's most popular games currently include Bejeweled 2, Astraware Sudoku, Zuma, Text Twist, Bookworm, Tradewinds, My Little Tank, Cubis, Ultimate Bowling Fighter, Mars Needs Cows, Big Box of Blox and Chuzzle.

Its most recent releases include the puzzle game Glyph, where you clear groups of like-colored gemstones to break through the layers of rock and reveal the glyphs, and then development of Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, which has celebrated its tenth anniversary, for the Palm OS and Windows Mobile.

Earlier this year, Symbian celebrated the development of the 100th phone model built on its eponymous smartphone platform. A month ago Symbian surpassed the 100 million mark for number handsets shipped running the OS.

Symbian, which formed in 1998, rang in the new millennium with the Ericsson R380, the first Symbian smartphone, six years ago. It took two years for the company to move its first 1 million handsets and only four more to add another 99 million to that tally—37 million through November of this year alone, with 13 million of those shipping during the third quarter.

BenQ, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sendo, Sharp, Siemens, and Sony Ericsson have all shipped Symbian handsets. Nokia, which has built over 44 Symbian smartphones, accounts for about 70 million of the first 100 million.

According to Canalys Research, Symbian holds 68 percent of the smartphone market, Microsoft Windows Mobile 15 percent, and RIM BlackBerry 6 percent. Linux and the Palm OS, for the most part, accounted for the rest. Nokia shipped 51 percent of all smartphones worldwide. And nearly all of those used the number one phone maker's S60 interface, which runs on top of the Symbian OS.