Nokia Officially Acquires Symbian and will absorb all Employees by next Year
By Alexis • Dec 5th, 2008 • Category: Industry NewsBesides the launch of its new smartphone N97, which according to Nokia is the most advanced smartphone till now, the company has made another important and strategic move. Recently this mobile manufacturer has acquired the world’s biggest smartphone operating system company called Symbian.
Nokia has been in collaboration with Symbian for a long time. It uses the Symbian Operating System in its all smartphones, including the Nokia E61, as well. Now the company has formally acquired the remaining Symbian partners too. Nokia took this step with an aim to release the Symbian Operating System under an open-source license. This is a challenge to Google’s smartphone operating system, Android. Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, the CEO of Nokia said, “The company wants to create the most attractive platform for mobile innovation and drive the development of new and compelling web-enabled applications.”
All the major stakeholders of Symbian including Sony Ericsson, Panasonic and Siemens have accepted the offer. Samsung Electronics, however, has not said anything regarding the acquisition, but Nokia is expecting a positive response. Nokia has planned to form the Symbian foundation with the companies that have intent of creating a royalty free open source operating system. Such companies include AT&T, Texas Instruments, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and some others. All the Symbian employees will be a part of the Nokia’s staff on 1st Feb, 2009.
Tags for this article: samsung, Nokia, panasonic
