Google Android delayed, Nokia buys Symbian and makes it open source
Things are really heating up now in the mobile OS wars. On July 11th, we will see the formal launch of version 2.0 of the iPhone OS. Yesterday, Google announced that their Android operating system, which was expected to arrive in the second half of this year, may be delayed further. And now, the other big player in the mobile OS space, Symbian, has been bought over by majority shareholder Nokia.
It’s pretty big news that the other Symbian shareholders (Sony Ericsson, Panasonic, and Siemens) agreed to sell of their stakes. The real big news is that Nokia won’t keep Symbian to itself, but rather hand it over to Symbian Foundation as an open source, royalty-free platform in conjunction with industry giants, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.
Notwithstanding the US$100 million fund for Android developers, Symbian already has a headstart with a huge base of devices and developers. Symbian doesn’t need to kickstart third party application development the way Google’s Android does. By making the Symbian operating system free, Nokia is going head-to-head with Google. Nokia’s recent acquisition spree now makes more sense — they would now be able to deliver Symbian as an operating system together with a location-based platform as well as social networking services.
Your move, Google?
Filed under: Mobile News
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