Development of the Symbian platform has moved fully over to Nokia, as the Symbian Foundation will transition to become the legal entity responsible for licensing software.
In a statement found by Engadget, Nokia has “committed” to make the future development of Symbian available through an open model.
The foundation’s transition will start by reducing its operations and staff numbers. By April 2011, it will be governed by non-executive directors to oversee its licensing function.
“The founding board members took a bold strategic step in setting up the foundation, which was absolutely the right decision at the time,” says Tim Holbrow, executive director of the Symbian Foundation.
“There has since been a seismic change in the mobile market but also more generally in the economy, which has led to a change in focus for some of our funding board members.
“The result of this is that the current governance structure for the Symbian platform – the foundation – is no longer appropriate,” said Holbrow.
Holbrow added that he is proud of the work they have done and that the platform still gained support, with 25pc of Symbian devices shipping in the last 12 months.
“Nokia remains committed to Symbian as the most used smartphone platform around the world,” said Jo Harlow, senior vice-president, Smartphones, Nokia.
“Nokia expects to sell more than 50 million Symbian^3 smartphones,” he said.
The Symbian Foundation saw its executive director step down in mid-October, putting a question mark over its future direction.
And while it is one of the most widely used operating systems in the world, support for the platform has been waning, thanks to recent developments in the smartphone market.
This announcement comes one day before the Symbian Exchange & Exposition 2010 in Amsterdam. Expect more information to emerge during that event.
