Will Nokia dump Symbian?

[Apocalypso]

Will Nokia dump Symbian?



Nokia?s position as the dominant supplier of Symbian handsets has allowed it to wield effective control over Symbian the company. However, ever since the Finnish giant?s attempt to purchase Psion?s 32% stake was thwarted last year by Symbian?s other shareholders, Nokia?s commitment to the OS appears to have cooled. Since the beginning of the year, Nokia has decided to license ActiveSync directly from Microsoft even though Symbian struck the same deal with Microsoft, and in May, ?Nokia announced its 770 tablet device running Linux,? not
Symbian. These developments have led us to speculate whether Nokia might consider dumping Symbian altogether, porting its Series 60 user interface to a Linux platform: a move which would mirror PalmSource?s decision to port its PalmOS to Linux. With most Series 60 applications written in Java, a move away from Symbian would not impact the 4,000 Series 60 programs currently available, and with Nokia looking to payout some $140 million in royalties to Symbian this year, there are clear economic benefits in moving to an Open Source platform. However, with Nokia responsible for around 70% of Symbian?s revenues, such a defection would rock the company.


Nokia?s huge handset market share has meant that the handset vendor is, by far, the primary conduit for the Symbian OS into the marketplace. In addition, Nokia has been the only handset vendor to develop a set of user interfaces ? Series 60, 80 and 90 - which provide the graphical finish necessary to make Symbian a full-featured operating system. This allowed Nokia to wield effective control over the company and the OS. Readers will recall that BluePrint has often suggested that it would be financially in Nokia?s interest to simply acquire Symbian outright.


Symbian's Shareholders

Source: Symbian


However, Symbian has strived to assert its independence and to portray itself and being vendor agnostic, and this brought about frequent clashes with Nokia. Nowhere was this conflict felt more than when it came to Symbian?s desire to IPO ? a move which would have ended Nokia?s virtual control of the OS. However, last year, when Psion decided to sell its 32% stake in Symbian to Nokia, it looked as though Nokia was one step closer to equity control. But victory was snatched at the last minute when Symbian?s other shareholders decided to exercise their pre-emption rights, leaving Nokia with just 47.9% ownership, instead of 63.3%.
Since then, Nokia?s relationship with Symbian appears to have cooled, and a series of developments over the past six months has brought into question the handset giant?s support for the Symbian OS.

For example, in February, Nokia struck a deal directly with Microsoft to license ActiveSync and Window Media DRM. This was unusual because Nokia knew that Symbian was negotiating a similar licensing deal with Microsoft for ActiveSync (which Symbian announced the following month). While it could be argued that the Nokia/Microsoft agreement is to cover Nokia?s non-Symbian handsets, ActiveSync and Windows Media compatibility are features which will likely be required only in Nokia?s mid to high-end devices, most of which are, or were destined to be, Symbian-based.

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http://www.arcchart.com/blueprint/show.asp?id=374&qtabs=99999

Sincerely yours,
Apoc

[Alien™]

It's pretty hard to say what will hapeen...
Only thing is sure, dumping symbian platform will be step back.

[edifgrto™]

IMHO,... this is impossible!

[Apocalypso]

First of all the answer. Impossible!
This started with a recent article from ARCchart which says that Nokia could use Linux ( like Palm will do in the future with their handhelds ) for the Series60 platform.
The main reason for this was that Nokia, even if it owns about 50% of Symbian Ltd, pays a 5$ license on every phone sold with Symbian OS. This 5$ fee is insignificant thinking that the other parts of a Series60 phone usually cost way over 100$.
Another reason was that Nokia has developed the Nokia 770 tablet on Linux instead of Symbian OS. The reason why Nokia did this is because Linux is better for this job. Nokia 770 is not even a phone. Is a totally different gadget. For such a device Linux is a big advantage because with a small effort they will port open-source programs to Nokia 770's proprietary Linux.
I find the migration, for Nokia's Series60, impossible because Nokia is just doing a great job with Series60 now. They have 75% of the SmartPhone market. This shows that this Symbian OS - Nokia formula is a great one and Nokia does not want to lose it's market share with such a switch