June 24th, 2008
Nokia Symbian deal shows Google on right track
Nokia has bought the rest of Symbian, which made the software for its phones, then placed it all into a new open source foundation.
The deal is valued at $410 million.
The move leaves Apple and RIM as the only major proprietary mobile platforms. And no, they don’t have all the market share, because Symbian also made the software used by Sony-Ericsson, Samsung and Motorola phones.
Nokia had owned 48% of Symbian, which is based in the UK, and the other major hardware makers owned the rest.
The foundation will control a number of popular mobile technologies — the S60 push-button interface, Sony-Ericsson’s UIQ for pens, and DoCoMo’s MOAP for Japan.
Membership in the foundation will cost $1,500, and it will have to sell services to those members in order to have any kind of budget. A news conference is currently taking place.
It seems clear that, by placing the most popular mobile designs into an open source foundation, the basic strategy underlying both Google Android and the LiMo Foundation has been validated.
Combine this with yesterday’s Google delays, however, and it’s also clear that carriers have the whip hand in mobile device development. Regardless of operating system or busness model.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 06/24/08
