Nokia has taken back control of the Symbian mobile operating system from the Symbian Foundation it set up itself just 18 months ago. The Foundation is a consortium of device manufacturers, service and software companies, financial service providers, semiconductor vendors and mobile operators with interests in the platform including Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HP, AOL, Visa, SanDisk, 3, T-Mobile and many more.
Despite the rise of Android and the iOS, Symbian is still by far and away the most popular mobile phone operating system. However following the Symbian Foundation completing the open-sourcing of the code behind Symbian less than 6 months ago – the original goal of the organisation – Nokia is taking all of the development back in-house. The Symbian Foundation will still survive, although its role will be diminished to a licensing provider for Symbian; Tim Holbrow, executive director of the Foundation, said that it is “unlikely” the Foundation will need any employees from early next year. There’s expected to be more information at the Symbian Exposition later in the week.
Meanwhile in mobile, it is rumoured that the latest version of Google’s Android operating system, 2.3 “Gingerbread”, will be hitting their flagship Nexus One mobile phones (which also happen to be no longer available to buy) as soon as this week. Apple are also expected to make the first major software update for their iPad device, iOS 4.2, available before the close of play on Friday.
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