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Nokia Buys Out Symbian, Opens It Up

posted Jun 24, 2008, 7:20 AM   by Eric M. Zeman

A contingent of mobile players have formed the Symbian Foundation with the intent of merging Symbian OS, S60, UIQ and MOAP to forge one open source mobile software platform. The companies include Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DoCoMo. These four companies, in partnership with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone, will all join to create the not-for-profit Foundation. In order to make this work, Nokia is buying the remaining shares of Symbian and will then give its Symbian and S60 software to the Foundation. Motorola, Sony Ericsson and DoCoMo have also agreed to contribute their own assets to the Foundation. With all the assets lumped together, the Symbian Foundation will create an open source, unified platform with a standardized user interface. Foundation members will have royalty-free access to the platform. The Foundation hopes that the open source platform will lead to increased innovation.