Nokia buys Symbian and prepares its response to Google Android
By admin at 30 June, 2008, 8:41 pm
Notices the storm in the world of mobile operating systems. Nokia buys fully Symbian, and together with a foundation all manufacturers and operators the Symbian platform. Objective: To develop, especially unify and make it “open source”.
Nokia fate the heavy artillery to counter Google and its future platform Android. 1 The number of mobile telephony has just announced that it bought all the assets of Symbian, publisher of mobile operating system market leader for smartphones.
Already holder of 48% of the company Symbian Limited, Nokia seizes therefore remaining 52% with Sony-Ericsson, Ericsson, Panasonic Mobile and Siemens for a total of 264 million euros. The Finns still awaits the green light last shareholder, Samsung.
This acquisition is in fact only the first step in a comprehensive strategic reorganization of the Symbian platform: it enables Nokia to make donation of software Symbian (operating system) and its interface Series60, all for the benefit of a new non-profit entity: the Foundation Symbian.
The other players in the Symbian environment simultaneously announced they would likewise: Sony-Ericsson and Motorola UIQ Technology and the Japanese DoCoMo, which operates the Symbian OS on some of its mobile.
The aim of the new Symbian Foundation is to create, from all these contributions, a unified mobile platform with a common interface, and especially open to all its members.
This acquisition represents a strong response from Nokia, façe the initiative to open source Google and its Open Handset Alliance, and to a lesser extent than the LiMo Foundation.
At first, only a number of components of the platform will be open, then the software will be available in full in the form of free license within two years (Eclipse Public License).
Some manufacturers and operators combined shareholdings
In addition to its founding members, the Foundation Symbian has already expanded several big names in mobile telephony: AT & T, LG, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. It is noted and a number of major industry players are taking stakes in projects in the converging interests.
These include Motorola, LG, Samsung, and NTT DoCoMo, which combine complex without commitments in the development of Google Android, the LiMo Foundation and now the Foundation Symbian.
The Symbian unified platform that will emerge from this initiative also receives a fleet of 200 million terminals, through 235 different models. Symbian holds almost 60% market share of smartphones (source: Canalys). And on the global market for telephony, Symbian represents about 7% of sales of mobile phones in 2007 (source: Strategy Analytics).
In addition, more than 4 million developers are already working on the Symbian platform. This means that even if this initiative seems late, particularly in relation to the project Android, which Google is both about him, the future open platform with Symbian share of non-negligible. In contrast, is undeniable proof that, despite its contention, Nokia strongly feared the entry of Google on its own hunting ground.
The Foundation Symbian will be operational from the first half of 2009, terminals marketed under the banner unified Symbian should be available a year later.
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