European Commission regains sanity, cancels €22 million SYMBEOSE project
Last November, to the surprise and dismay of many, the European Commission decided it needed to stimulate some homegrown innovation in the mobile space and pulled together €22 million in a public/private investment designed to help Symbian get ahead. It was intended to turn Nokia's former lover into the Embedded Operating System for Europe (hence the name SYMBEOSE), but alas the breakup between Symbian and the Finnish mobile maker was too much to overcome. The EC has decided, quite rightly, that there's no sense in continuing its symbtopia project, and now a member of Neelie Kroes' team has confirmed the entire venture has been cancelled. European taxpayers (two of whom you see on the right) will also be glad to know that no money has exchanged hands, so the bullet has been well and truly dodged. Guess that's why they're looking so happy.
[Thanks, Danijel]
Update: Nokia has confirmed the foregoing in a statement, which you can find after the break.
"Nokia has been made aware that the ARTEMIS Joint Undertaking has decided not to continue its planned SYMBEOSE project. We understand this was for a number of reasons, including the decision by a number of manufacturers to move away from Symbian and Nokia's plans for Windows Phone as its primary smartphone strategy. We believe that no funding had yet been distributed, either by ARTEMIS JU, the EU or national agencies.
However, although the SYMBEOSE project will not proceed, Nokia will continue to invest in development and enhancements for the Symbian platform, working directly with other companies. With 75 million Qt capable Symbian smartphones already in use, together with Nokia's plans to ship a further 150 million, we believe Qt and Symbian remain an attractive proposition for application developers, with the ability to deliver their apps to consumers via the Ovi Store."
