Is the smartphone the new computer? That’s a point that has been argued back and forth extensively but it misses the point, which is that the smartphone isn’t really a traditional computer at all.
Symmetric Multiprocessing or SMP, a feature earlier found only on servers and more recently on PCs will soon find its way to smartphones. Many smartphones released in the last couple of years already have dual CPUs. In fact, one of the features that Symbian is working on is support for SMP. Phones with multi-core processors are expected by 2010 and the goal is to offer applications that are optimized to run on these phones. Interestingly, one of the plus points of SMP on a smartphone is going to be lower battery consumption. Having multiple processing units that run at a lower clock speed means that less power is consumed. This is one of the primary reasons why computer makers stopped gunning for faster CPUs and switched to multi-core chips and the same logic applies to smartphones as well. Moreover, as these devices become widely used, the threat scenario will worsen and you will need an anti-virus application just as you do on your PC and having one or more multi-core CPUs on your phone will let you stay safe without slowing down your device to the point of it being useless.
