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Nokia buys out Symbian and makes it open source
Territories covered
Western Europe
Austria,
Belgium,
Denmark,
Finland,
France,
Germany,
Greece,
Ireland,
Italy,
Netherlands,
Norway,
Portugal,
Spain,
Sweden,
Switzerland,
UK,
Central and Eastern Europe
Hungary,
Poland,
North America
Canada,
USA,
Asia-Pacific
China,
India,
Japan,
South Korea,
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Published:
25-Jun-08
Nokia intends to acquire the remaining 52% of Symbian Limited for þ264m. Symbian is currently owned by Nokia (47.9%), Sony Ericsson (13.1%), Ericsson (15.6%), Panasonic (10.5%), Siemens (8.4%) and Samsung Electronics (4.5%). In parallel to the Symbian buy out announcement, Nokia announced the upcoming launch of the Symbian Foundation. The aim of the foundation is to integrate several software platforms such as S60 from Nokia, UIQ from Sony Ericsson, and MOAP(S) from NTT DoCoMo, with the Symbian OS to create a new open platform under a royalty-free licence. Initial members of the foundation include top five handset manufacturers Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics and Motorola, mobile operators AT&T, NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone, and hardware manufacturers STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments. All contributing software assets will be made available for free at launch in the first half of 2009.
Our take...According to Nokia, more than 200 million Symbian OS based handsets have been shipped in 6 years. However, Q1 2008 shipments fell by an all-time high 17% quarter on quarter. This reflects the recent downturn in high-end handset shipments partly due to erosion of disposable income and market saturation in developed countries.
Screen Digest believes there are two main reasons behind Nokia's intentions: - Remain competitive against other open source platforms such as mobile Linux and Google Android.
- Drive innovation in the application space as part of its OVI strategy.
The move will benefit a large portion of the mobile industry: - Handset manufacturers will save on licensing and software development costs
- Mobile operators will be able to personalise handsets to their liking using a pool of open applications.
- Software developers will have less handset OS to support thereby lowering development costs
Microsoft which has its own mobile OS, Windows Mobile, costing between $8 and $15 to license is likely to suffer the most from this deal. How Microsoft will react to Nokia's announcement remains to be seen.
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Analyst intelligence & notices
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