Talking about its application-publishing program, Horizon, on Thursday, the leading operating system for smartphones, the British company Symbian - which is a nonprofit ever since its last year takeover by Nokia, and is now Symbian Foundation - said that Horizon would likely lower the barrier of entry for mobile content creators.

The Horizon platform - which is presently in preview mode, and for which Symbian will not charge anything - will reportedly be like a book publisher or record label that would attract mobile content developers away from Apple, Google's Android, and RIM.

With Symbian expected to take the singular application distribution program out of beta in October, developers are already allowed to register for it on the Symbian Foundation Web site. The companies that have announced their inclination to make use of the Horizon platform include National Public Radio, Ustream, The Guardian, and Wine. com.

Symbian's Horizon program will offer the requisite assistance for application certification, language translations, as well as marketing programs. In addition, Horizon would tie-up with different application stores - like Nokia's Ovi Store, Samsung's application store, AT&T's MEdia Mall - for broadening the reach of the application developers.

Elaborating Symbian's aim behind the launch of the Horizon platform, Symbian Foundation's Executive Director, Lee Williams, said: "Our goal is to encourage robust application development, increase revenue and application diversity in mobile stores, and improve the consumer experience."