Nokia To Purchase Symbian, Create Symbian Foundation

Filed in archive New Launches on June 24, 2008

The logos you see above are the founding members of the Symbian Foundation, which Nokia will create after it completes the outright purchase of Symbian. Nokia already owns a controlling interest in Symbian and gets the lions share of it's business from Nokia already, so this won't change too much.

What's really key about this particular initiative: wide industry support and the eventual plan to open source Symbian itself. Handset makers, semiconductor makers, and operators are going in on the Symbian Foundation. Nokia will be donating the bulk of the intellectual property assets in the form of Symbian and S60, but we will also see UIQ and MOAP(S) be part of the effort as well, with the goal being a single, unified platform.

In two years time, the plan is to open source the entire stack under the Eclipse Public License, making it possible for anyone to see-and tweak-the innards of Symbian. Initially, once Symbian Foundation launches, everything will be made available on a royalty-free basis to fellow members of the Symbian Foundation.