Chicago (IL) - Nokia today announced that it has taken the final steps to complete its acquisition of Symbian, the software company that develops and licenses the Symbian operating system for mobile devices pre-dominantly used in Nokia's cellphones. Nokia said that all conditions to its offer to acquire the remaining shares of Symbian that it did not own have been met. The move clears the way for the creation of a new open-source mobile platform.
"The proposed transaction has received valid acceptance of greater than 99.9% of the total Symbian shares that Nokia did not already own," the firm said in a statement released today. With Symbian being acquired by Nokia, the Symbian Foundation, announced earlier this year, may look into a much brighter future: The software secured support from telecom heavyweights to turn the Symbian OS into a central software platform for future cellphones and mobile devices.
The Foundation includes Nokia, AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, ST-NXP Wireless, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. Nokia will contribute the Symbian OS and S60 software to the Symbian Foundation, Motorola will add its UIQ technology while Docomo plans to contribute its MOAP assets to the organization. The cellphone giant also plans on creating a universal user interface framework and provide it to all Foundation members on a royalty-free basis.
Jack E. Gold, founder and principal analyst at J. Gold Associates, told TG Daily that this represents "a step towards Nokia's stated goal of making Symbian an open source environment." The analyst also urged Nokia to "de-focus from owning Symbian," suggesting the cellphone giant should "spin it out to make it more attractive to the development community, and potentially to other phone manufacturers." He thinks Nokia will benefit from the move with "enhanced functionality".
A milestone or just another mobile platform?
Nokia's acquisition of Symbian Limited and the creation of the Symbian Foundation could be viewed as a milestone that alters the cellphone landscape. The platform is backed by major vendors who are part of the Open Handset Alliance that promotes Google's Android as well. But Symbian may need to catch up and improving the UI framework will not be enough to be able to compete with Android, the iPhone OS, RIM and the upcoming Windows Mobile 7.
It needs enhanced support for a gesture-based touch UI, advanced multimedia and music player capabilities, an application store that will let users pick and install third-party applications directly on the handset, a shiny UI polish that turns heads and more enterprise features. Symbian needs those capabilities now, but it is unclear who will develop them.
Gold thinks "the community" should be in charge. "Nokia must make sure it does not exert any undue control over Symbian but lets the community take over its natural development, he said, adding that the company is now free to concentrate on services and products that will generate revenues.”Phone OSes are not money makers, only enabling technologies," the analyst said. "Ultimately, this decision to make Symbian open is good for Nokia and good for the industry."
Symbian leads the market in terms of market share due to the fact that Nokia is putting it in its. However, a lack of enterprise features limits Symbian's appeal for now to the consumer segment where rivals are already gaining market share at the expense of Symbian. The two-year timeframe to complete the transition towards the new Symbian platform doesn't help either since rival platforms will have covered lots of ground by then.
Gold believes that the Symbian Foundation will affect Linux and Windows Mobile the most. "As the Symbian Foundation moves to a royalty free model, the advantages of royalty-free Linux become much less clear," he told TG Daily. "This will also have a major impact on Windows Mobile," he said, adding that Microsoft might find it difficult to justify relatively high license fees for its OS when Android and market-leading Symbian are offered for free. The analyst also suggests that Symbian and Android could merge to a single open-source operating system. "Many of the same sponsors are involved in both initiatives" he said.
"The proposed transaction has received valid acceptance of greater than 99.9% of the total Symbian shares that Nokia did not already own," the firm said in a statement released today. With Symbian being acquired by Nokia, the Symbian Foundation, announced earlier this year, may look into a much brighter future: The software secured support from telecom heavyweights to turn the Symbian OS into a central software platform for future cellphones and mobile devices.
The Foundation includes Nokia, AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, ST-NXP Wireless, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. Nokia will contribute the Symbian OS and S60 software to the Symbian Foundation, Motorola will add its UIQ technology while Docomo plans to contribute its MOAP assets to the organization. The cellphone giant also plans on creating a universal user interface framework and provide it to all Foundation members on a royalty-free basis.
Jack E. Gold, founder and principal analyst at J. Gold Associates, told TG Daily that this represents "a step towards Nokia's stated goal of making Symbian an open source environment." The analyst also urged Nokia to "de-focus from owning Symbian," suggesting the cellphone giant should "spin it out to make it more attractive to the development community, and potentially to other phone manufacturers." He thinks Nokia will benefit from the move with "enhanced functionality".
A milestone or just another mobile platform?
Nokia's acquisition of Symbian Limited and the creation of the Symbian Foundation could be viewed as a milestone that alters the cellphone landscape. The platform is backed by major vendors who are part of the Open Handset Alliance that promotes Google's Android as well. But Symbian may need to catch up and improving the UI framework will not be enough to be able to compete with Android, the iPhone OS, RIM and the upcoming Windows Mobile 7.
It needs enhanced support for a gesture-based touch UI, advanced multimedia and music player capabilities, an application store that will let users pick and install third-party applications directly on the handset, a shiny UI polish that turns heads and more enterprise features. Symbian needs those capabilities now, but it is unclear who will develop them.
Gold thinks "the community" should be in charge. "Nokia must make sure it does not exert any undue control over Symbian but lets the community take over its natural development, he said, adding that the company is now free to concentrate on services and products that will generate revenues.”Phone OSes are not money makers, only enabling technologies," the analyst said. "Ultimately, this decision to make Symbian open is good for Nokia and good for the industry."
Symbian leads the market in terms of market share due to the fact that Nokia is putting it in its. However, a lack of enterprise features limits Symbian's appeal for now to the consumer segment where rivals are already gaining market share at the expense of Symbian. The two-year timeframe to complete the transition towards the new Symbian platform doesn't help either since rival platforms will have covered lots of ground by then.
Gold believes that the Symbian Foundation will affect Linux and Windows Mobile the most. "As the Symbian Foundation moves to a royalty free model, the advantages of royalty-free Linux become much less clear," he told TG Daily. "This will also have a major impact on Windows Mobile," he said, adding that Microsoft might find it difficult to justify relatively high license fees for its OS when Android and market-leading Symbian are offered for free. The analyst also suggests that Symbian and Android could merge to a single open-source operating system. "Many of the same sponsors are involved in both initiatives" he said.