Symbian Foundation offers Bigger, Better Open Platform
Written by martyndavies on Jun 24, 2008 - 01:27 PM
Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Docomo are uniting their mobile phone operating systems under the Symbian umbrella. The formation of the Symbian Foundation was just announced in London, with Nokia transferring its ownership of Symbian to the newly-formed foundation.
The new foundation will manage a combined new operating system platform for the benefit of its membership including not only Nokia and Sony Ericsson, but also Samsung, LG, TI, and operators AT&T, Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile.
Sony Ericsson will no longer have to man their own Symbian offshoot, UIQ, so the S60 and UIQ families can converge again. Also breathing a sigh of relief will be Motorola, who can focus on their troubled handsets while leaving the OS development to others. Symbian themselves will be happy to see more people in the club, and perhaps this means they will be able to address the mass-market phones more effectively rather than just smartphones. This is also a chance also for Symbian to grow their footprint in the USA, which is a blackspot for Symbian smartphones. The US market is much more fragmented, with a lot of activity in Windows Mobile, and also specialised verticals in the iPhone and Blackberry.
The competitive landscape has been changing a lot recently in mobile phone operating systems, with LiMo (Linux Mobile) and most recently Google's Android offering open systems, and arguably also Windows Mobile opening the platform to handset partners. The Symbian Foundation is an interesting counterbalance to that.
Link: Symbian Foundation Website
The new foundation will manage a combined new operating system platform for the benefit of its membership including not only Nokia and Sony Ericsson, but also Samsung, LG, TI, and operators AT&T, Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile.
| Nigel Clifford, Symbian CEO : |
|
Ten years ago, Symbian was established by far sighted players to offer an advanced open operating system and software skills to the whole mobile industry. Our vision is to become the most widely used software platform on the planet and indeed today Symbian OS leads its market by any measure. Today's announcement is a bold new step to achieve that vision by embracing a complete and proven platform, offered in an open way, designed to stimulate innovation which is at the heart of everything we do. |
Sony Ericsson will no longer have to man their own Symbian offshoot, UIQ, so the S60 and UIQ families can converge again. Also breathing a sigh of relief will be Motorola, who can focus on their troubled handsets while leaving the OS development to others. Symbian themselves will be happy to see more people in the club, and perhaps this means they will be able to address the mass-market phones more effectively rather than just smartphones. This is also a chance also for Symbian to grow their footprint in the USA, which is a blackspot for Symbian smartphones. The US market is much more fragmented, with a lot of activity in Windows Mobile, and also specialised verticals in the iPhone and Blackberry.
The competitive landscape has been changing a lot recently in mobile phone operating systems, with LiMo (Linux Mobile) and most recently Google's Android offering open systems, and arguably also Windows Mobile opening the platform to handset partners. The Symbian Foundation is an interesting counterbalance to that.
Link: Symbian Foundation Website
Reply from martyndavies on Jun 25, 2008 - 11:31 AM
Reply from dean on Jun 25, 2008 - 02:38 PM
Anyone have any further detail ?
| Forum Rules and Guidelines | About VoIP User | Privacy Policy |
All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. Comments and posts are property of the poster, all the rest (c) 2003-2008 VoIP User Limited. VoIP User Limited is incorporated in England and Wales under Company Number 6694577. No part of this site may be reproduced without our prior consent. |
