Post-show wrap: Symbian Foundation frees from Nokia handcuffs
The Symbian Foundation announced its spin-off from Nokia as a non-profit organization at CTIA Wireless, complete with a new logo, a beta Web site and ambitious aims. At an open forum event at the show, Foundation members, journalists and analysts discussed the future of Symbian’s open-source mobile operating system. The common trend that emerged was a concern that its ties to Nokia were still too strong.
Foundation executives stressed the power of openness and said that by 2011, other third-party developers would be contributing far more code than Nokia. But for now, most agreed that the global handset leader remains the driving force of Symbian, which will fully integrate Nokia’s S60 middleware and user interface with the OS and eventually support touch interfaces and widgets – new to Symbian, but quickly becoming table stakes in the industry.
For more on Symbian’s road ahead, see Telephony’s online story on the Foundation.
