Nokia Buys Symbian To Create Open Source Mobile Operating System

Tuesday, June 24th 2008 -- Nokia today announced that the company has bought Symbian, the mobile operating system company that powers the full line of Nokia Cell Phones, Smartphones, and Pocket PC's. Nokia will hand the Symbian software platform over to the Symbian Foundation who will in turn offer the software as an open source solution. The hopes of the move is that Nokia can help create new innovations and a formidable Operating system in the increasingly crowded mobile operating system market.

The Symbian Foundation who will be handling the software will incorporate Symbian with S60, UIQ and MOAP software bundles to create a fully open sourced Operating System with a full palette of funcionality. 

The Symbian Foundation is spearheaded by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, motorola and NTT DoCoMo. The foundation also receives support from AT&T, LG Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas instruments, Vodafone, and Samsung Electronics. The non-profit Symbian Foundation hopes to create a Mobile Operating system that will offer a standard user interface and will be offered to mobile handset manufacturers royalty-free, a move that could foreseeably help drive down the cost of handsets that arrive at market.

Aside from Nokia's contribution Motorola, Sony Ericsson and DoCoMo have all donated their own programs and expertise to the project.