Sony Ericsson has unceremoniously axed Symbian’s rapidly declining OS from its future smartphone lineup.
“We have no plans for the time being to develop any new products to the Symbian Foundation standard or operating system,” company spokesperson Aldo Liguor told Bloomberg in an official statement.
Liguor also reiterated that Google’s Android was not currently the company’s “exclusive” OS, but emphasized that the platform would certainly continue to be an “important” one for Sony Ericsson.
As Thom Holwerda of OS News notes, Symbian’s future is now obviously quite uncertain and just a little bit shaky.
“[Yes], Symbian is still the world’s most popular smartphone operating system, but this is mainly due to Nokia’s ability to make great hardware at affordable prices.
“[Remember], other mobile phone manufacturers already ditched Symbian, such as Motorla and Samsung, both of which focus on Android as well.
“[Clearly], Nokia seems to be stuck between MeeGo and Symbian, not really knowing which to put its weight behind…But if it is going to be MeeGo, Symbian’s days as the number one smartphone operating system are [certainly] numbered.”
Marin Perez of IntoMobile expressed similar sentiments.
“It’s clear that Symbian doesn’t have a bright, immediate future in the high-end smartphone space. Nokia appears to be the only major manufacturer to use [the OS] and even [it] is positioning MeeGo as its top-shelf brand.
“[In addition], it appears [as if] Sony Ericsson will be making a huge bet on Android. We’ve heard strong rumors that the company will finally be making the PlayStation Phone with Android 3.0 – which should have access to a Sony-specific game network [as well as] the nearly 100,000 apps in the Android Market.”
