June/July 2008

Nokia's announcement that it is to buy out its partners' share in the Symbian operating system for third-generation mobile phones, and gift it to a new not-for-profit organisation called the Symbian Foundation, is being welcomed by analysts as a positive move for the telecoms industry. Ovum for instance says it will encourage adoption and collaboration.

Nokia already held a 48 per cent interest in Symbian, but some believe this made even its partners nervous about giving it full-hearted support, leaving open the opportunity for Linux especially, and to some extent Microsoft Mobile, to gain market share. The expectation is that partners will be more comfortable about using a fully open system.

Users of all these systems are also of course battling increasingly with Apple's iPhone, which has made massive inroads into the consumer market despite using Apple's own proprietary operating system.

Nokia is believed to have paid £209 million to complete the Symbian acquisition. It says future funding will be provided by participants in the foundation. It aims to develop 'the most complete mobile software offering available in open source', which will be made available over the next two years under what it is calling the Eclipse Public License (EPL).

Other original partners were Psion, Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson and Panasonic, but Psion sold out its share some years ago. Founding members of the foundation are LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.