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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.
Symbian Foundation axing websites on December 17th, source repositories available 'upon request'
We'd heard that the Symbian Foundation would undergo some drastic changes as it transitions to a licensing body, and here's number one -- every official Symbian website will be shuttered on the 17th of next month. That goes for every page from symbian.org down to the Symbian Twitter and Facebook feeds, and the source code itself will be shelved. If you want access to any of it, even the databases of user-generated bug reports, you'll have to ask the Foundation for a hard copy and pay a nominal media and shipping fee after January 31st. We're trying to reach Symbian right now to figure out the full repercussions of this move, but assuming Nokia's promise to keep Symbian open-source still rings true, you might want to start stashing away the repositories and setting up mirrors before the Foundation drops off the face of the web -- and perhaps the Symbian crowdsource community, too.
Nokia taking over Symbian development, Foundation responsible for licensing
So it seems the Symbian Foundation isn't necessarily going away, but it's transitioning its role in a big, big way. They're undertaking a "strategic change" that will involve the Foundation moving to a new role where it controls the product's patent portfolio and licenses the Symbian brand and its research and development activities, but the meat of the operation -- the actual platform development -- will move over to Nokia beginning the end of March next year. For its part, Nokia says that it's still "strongly committed" to the platform, it just won't be the Foundation throwing it together. Interestingly, the Symbian Exposition is this week in Amsterdam, so we suspect we'll be hearing a lot more about this over the next few days. Is it just us, or is Mr. Elop making his presence felt very, very quickly? For what it's worth, the Foundation is explaining that a board meeting held just today played a big role in this decision and sudden announcement -- though there was a call for media, we received notice of it just minutes before the event. Follow the break for both Symbian's and Nokia's press releases.
Europe drops €22M into Symbian, Harrods shopping spree seems inevitable
Don't count the Symbian Foundation out just yet, because the European Commission has emerged like a knight in shining armor thanks to a €22 million public / private joint investment and a new consortium of some 24 organizations awkwardly called SYMBEOSE: "Symbian – the Embedded Operating System for Europe." Needless to say, it seems like some of the higher-ups across the continent are feeling a little emotional about the hometown platform -- especially now that it's starting to take a lot of heat -- and have thrown some skin in the game to keep things interesting. For its part, the Foundation says that the initiative (and presumably the money) will go toward developing "new core platform capabilities," exploring cloud computing, and broadening the platform's hardware ecosystem, among other things. Oh, and new Air Jordans would be nice. For Christmas, maybe. [Thanks, Ronald]
Canalys: iPhone becomes most popular smartphone in the US, Android continues as most popular OS
The Canalys numbers are out, and with Android coming off an 886 percent jump reported at the end of the second quarter we were expecting something big. So, here it is: Android is up 1,309 percent worldwide from this time last year, taking over 43.6 percent of the US smartphone market in the third quarter. In terms of mobile operating systems that makes it the dominant player in America, but with Apple capturing 26.2 percent it now jumps into the lead when it comes to hardware, beating out RIM's 24.2 percent. That's a swap from last quarter, where BlackBerries beat iPhones 32 to 21.7 percent, and worldwide things are looking the same: Apple at 17 percent compared to RIM's 15. However around the globe it's Nokia and the Symbian Foundation still dominating the stage as the leading smart phone OS vendor, owning 33 percent of the market compared to 38 last quarter, while Microsoft sits at a lowly 3 percent. With WP7 ready to rock the world, and Ballmer ready to release the advertising hounds, that's a figure we'll be keeping a close eye on for the next few quarters. Update: NPD has posted its third quarter smartphone market share and Mobile Phone Track reports; they basically back up Canalys' report, though NPD gives both Apple and RIM slightly less market share. Interestingly, RIM's BlackBerry Curve 8500 series is identified as the second-best selling phone in the US in the quarter, while the lowly LG Cosmos for Verizon takes third. Weird, huh?
Nokia's Savander: 'the Symbian Foundation will exist as an open source movement and we will use it'
The veracity of The Register's information regarding the Symbian Foundation's future remains to be seen -- but for what it's worth, Nokia's outspoken vice president of markets, Niklas Savander, seems to have some pretty strong language about the platform's future in a recent interview with CNET Asia. Here's the money quote in response to a question about whether Espoo will pull the Foundation's operations back in-house after having spun them off as an open-source operation in 2008: "I don't see any reason for that. What would be the benefit of doing that? We have made it open source, so it's, of course, up to the different users whether they want to use it. The whole notion behind the open-source community is that people can choose to leave or not to leave. We have quite a few Japanese vendors that are pushing Symbian products. The Symbian Foundation will exist as an open source movement and we will use it. Other people are welcome to use it if they want to. If they don't, that's not going to change things. That's how open source works." So Nokia's public-facing philosophy seems to be that they don't care who -- if anyone -- uses Symbian, they're going to continue to let the Foundation do its thing. Meanwhile, another part of the interview highlights the fact that they're still planning to continue to drive Symbian downmarket. Obviously, Nokia's internal roadmap could differ significantly from Savander's message, but so far, we don't have any hint from these guys that changes are afoot. That said, the Foundation's funding situation could force Nokia to take action if it wants the platform to continue to develop and evolve, but we suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Another interesting tidbit in the interview highlights the fact that one of new Nokia CEO Stephen Elop's edicts has been to significantly reduce the amount of time between a product's announcement and its release, which might be the driving force behind his decision to push the introduction of Nokia's first MeeGo products into 2011. As much as we hate waiting, we'd say that's a stellar direction for the company to take -- nothing builds animosity toward a product more than letting it waste away in a purgatory of unattainability (assuming your name isn't Eldar Murtazin) for six-plus months.
Symbian Foundation winding down operations?
2010 hasn't exactly been a banner year for Symbian, with Symbian^3 getting lipstick-on-a-pig reviews via the just-launched Nokia N8, top-tier supporter Samsung moving on, and chief exec Lee Williams either quitting or being shown the door. On that note, it comes as little surprise that doomsday rumors are starting to swirl -- and The Register is citing a "source close to Symbian" as saying that new CEO Tim Holbrow is under orders to square things away for closure while some employees have apparently already been offered severance packages. Seeing how Sammy was one of the Foundation's primary sponsors (along with Nokia and Sony Ericsson), it's reasonable to believe that they're finding themselves in a cash pinch -- and now that Nokia is de-emphasizing the concept of Symbian^4 altogether, it seems like there might be little work for these guys left... especially considering that Sony Ericsson has no new Symbian products in the pipe. Putting a CFO in charge of a company is often a sign that the bottom line -- not product innovation -- is the priority, and realistically, there's never been a better time for Nokia to bring things back in-house since other manufacturers have moved on and MeeGo isn't ready for prime time just yet. Time to call Symbian dead? Far from it, but a major shake-up is starting to feel inevitable.
Symbian boss steps down effective immediately
Citing "personal reasons," the Symbian Foundation has just announced that executive director Lee Williams has left the company -- yes, "left," as in he's not going to stick around for a while to manage a transition. Williams has been steeped in Symbian for some time, having previously led Nokia's S60 business -- but the dude's been floating around the upper ranks of the entire mobile industry for ages, doing time with Motorola (through its Symbol acquisition) and Palm / PalmSource by way of Be. He's been replaced by the organization's reigning CFO, Tim Holbrow, and it appears that the appointment is permanent; what this means for Symbian's roadmap (if anything) is unclear, but we'd love to hear the backstory on what led to this power shift. More on the situation as we get it.
Samsung terminates support for Symbian
It was almost a year ago that a senior Samsung VP was quoted expressing plans to drop Symbian. Samsung quickly backtracked on those comments with a vague commitment to its multi-OS strategy. Well, the other shoe just dropped via an email sent to registered Symbian developers advising that Samsung would close its Symbian forum and remove all Symbian content by year's end. Not that we can blame them -- while Symbian is just starting to show signs of recovery the OS has been floundering over the last few years. And Samsung, Nokia's biggest threat in its bid to democratize smartphone sales, is already plenty busy with Bada, Windows Phone 7, and Android. So while Samsung might still be a member of Symbian Foundation, it, like Sony Ericsson, is doing so in name only. [Thanks, Rohit]
Sony Ericsson says it has 'no plans' for any new Symbian products
Symbian has taken some pretty hard hits as of late, and it's just been dealt another big one -- Sony Ericsson has confirmed earlier talk that it is indeed abandoning the operating system. As Sony Ericsson spokesperson Aldo Liguori bluntly puts it, "we have no plans for the time being to develop any new products to the Symbian Foundation standard or operating system." That doesn't completely close the door on Symbian, of course, and Liguori also said that Sony Ericsson still remains a member of the Symbian Foundation. Those future meetings should certainly be interesting, no?
Nokia C7 gets an early look: 'hardly a market leader'
The upcoming C7's been well-leaked at this point, but one thing it hasn't undergone is the famously exhaustive Mobile-review once-over that takes weeks to read and even longer to digest. Actually, this isn't so much a review as a "first look" based on prototype hardware -- and as such, it's quite a bit shorter -- but it still gives by far the best, clearest, and most in-depth glance at Nokia's second Symbian^3 device to date. Unlike the over-the-top N8, Mobile-review comes away concluding that the C7 is an exceptionally well-balanced device for a Nokia -- solid specs at a more aggressive price than its Nseries cousin -- but acknowledges that it's still outclassed by the competition and isn't likely to draw any non-Nokia loyalists into the fold. MeeGo, where art thou?
First real Symbian^4 screen shots emerge
We'd argue that the "wow" factor still isn't there quite yet, but we'll admit: Symbian^4 is clearly going to be a bit of a departure from the versions that came before it. The Symbian Foundation has posted the first handful of home screen UI shots on its developer wiki recently showing redesigned widgets, app categories and search, pop-up menus, and a standard-issue numeric touchscreen keypad -- and unlike Nokia's concept videos from before, these are from a real emulator running real code. While MeeGo is still expected to dominate the high end of its range, Nokia's expecting to use Symbian^4 in at least some of its devices by early 2011 -- and knowing how these guys like to go big with global roll-outs spanning tens or hundreds of millions of devices, this is a UI you might end up getting to know extremely well within a year or two.
Gartner: Symbian is 're-arranging the deck chairs,' losing buoyancy fast
We all know that Symbian is still holding the fort as the globe's most widely used mobile OS, but anyone interested in criticizing it nowadays will have to get into a queue. Nick Jones from Gartner is latest to launch a broadside against the apparently complacent market leader, opining that its user experience has been surpassed by iOS and Android, and arguing that future iterations do not promise enough innovation to make the platform stand out. He underpins these observations with his firm's latest estimates, which indicate Symbian's decline in share is accelerating, before positing the idea that the Foundation sets aside some talent for skunkworks projects in order to give itself fallback options should Symbian^4 not be blindingly marvelous. Nick might be going a little overboard with the bleakness of his outlook, but there's no questioning his "Android iceberg" analogy -- if Symbian doesn't find the right course soon, Google might well end up collecting a big chunk of its exasperated users.
Symbian Foundation talks about its move to open source
As we'd figured out last night, Symbian's big reveal for today was the completion of its move to a fully open, royalty-free platform -- meaning you no longer need to be a paid-in-full member of the Foundation to see all the code -- and they're ready to talk about it and spread the word far and wide. Though Symbian's certainly not getting as much share of the mobile discussion these days as some of its smaller competitors, it's certainly important to keep in mind that these guys have software deployed on literally hundreds of millions of devices, making this perhaps the largest-scale conversion of a closed operating system to open source in history. Because the code has been licensed under the Eclipse public license rather than the harder-core GPL, device manufacturers will be able to continue to tack on custom features and hardware support without open-sourcing it, which should make them less gun-shy about throwing weight behind the platform -- and considering how badly these guys need to get back into the spotlight, that's a good thing. Follow the break for the Foundation's intro video to the wide, wide world of open source and Symbian^3, the first version to be fully spread out for everyone to see. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Symbian's revealing something tomorrow, but what? (update: open source!)
Oh, Symbian, you tease! For an organization as committed to openness and sharing its roadmap (and its code) as the Symbian Foundation, it's pretty unusual that they'd be counting down to a big unveiling of anything -- but sure enough, they've been tweeting decreasing numbers with the hashtag "#symbiancountdown" starting back on January 26 with 108. Today we're down to 12 (it's hard to say what sort of jacked-up counting system they're using here) with a note of "what will tomorrow bring?" so it looks like we can expect this all to go down in just a few short hours. One thought is that they could announce that Symbian^3 has gone Functionally Complete, a key milestone in getting it pushed to devices -- but that's a shot in the dark. Don't disappoint, guys. Update: Looks like it may be the full source for Symbian^2, the Foundation's first open release. Update 2: They've gotten around to tossing up a blog post about it, and it's actually Symbian^3 that's going open here, which "will soon be feature complete." Good times.
Nokia slashing smartphone lineup in half for 2010
One of the natural side effects of being the largest maker of cellphones in the world is that you produce a lot of different models -- a lot -- which makes it way too easy for product planning, engineering, and marketing to all have corners cut for even the most important devices in the herd. Nokia seems to be coming to terms with that, though, announcing that it'll scale back from "around 20" smartphones released this year to roughly a half of that in 2010, allowing it to give each phone the TLC it so desperately needs. Interestingly, the company says that it's looking to the low- to midrange smartphone realm as a hot new competitive frontier -- and an area where it'll "have tools to play offence [sic] as well as defense," possibly thanks to its continued involvement in Symbian even as it looks to Maemo to grow the high end. By any measure, it sounds like Nokia's starting to get the hint -- but it's still anyone's guess what kinds of products will ultimately see out of these guys over the next 12 to 18 months.
Samsung responds to Symbian claims, says it's still supporting it
Contrary to popular belief (and reports from yesterday), it seems that Samsung actually isn't planning to ditch Symbian anytime soon -- or at least it's not prepared to tell the public. Shortly after announcing its own Bada OS, rumors began to fly that Symbian support would fade in the near future; according to a company representative speaking with Mobile Burn, however, that's simply not true. To quote: "Samsung is an initial member of Symbian Foundation and continues to cooperate with Symbian Foundation. At the same time, Samsung supports various existing open operating systems including Symbian, Linux, Android, and Windows Mobile. To provide more choices to meet consumers' many different tastes and preferences, we will continue our 'multi-OS' strategy." 'Course, just because it's "continuing" to support Symbian doesn't mean that the hammer won't fall tomorrow, but at least for now it seems the Big S is safe from seeing one of its own jump ship. Phew.
Symbian Foundation dares to call characters in the dialer a 'brainstorm idea'
The good news: the alphanumeric dialer keypad was integrated into Symbian's codebase from a community-submitted suggestion. The bad news: it took a community-submitted suggestion to make the dialer keypad alphanumeric.
Symbian Foundation teases augmented reality/social networking tool, says you'll probably never get it (video)
What do you do when everyone's talking about the competition's exciting new take on navigation? Why, you come up with your exciting new angle that's way cooler than theirs then sit back and guffaw while high-fiving your co-workers. That seems to be what Symbian Foundation is attempting here, with a teaser of a tool that would let you not only easily interact with Facebook events but also get real-time augmented reality navigation straight to them. It looks fancy enough, but there's a big catch: the company has no current plans of making it a reality, saying it's "not part of the Symbian UI Roadmap." Carry on, then, nothing to see after the break but a mobile Web 2.0 pipe dream.
Symbian^4 to break compatibility with S60 apps in a big way
It's been known that the first iterations of the Symbian Foundation's platform releases are basically going to amount to S60 5th Edition Feature Packs, but what comes after that? TamsS60 recently had a chat with David Wood -- who has the rather fantastical-sounding title of "Catalyst and Futurist" at the Foundation -- and he's managed to set the record straight about how S60 as we know it will be phased out over the next few years to make way for a new (well, mostly new) development stack. Most notably, UI toolkit Qt will replace S60's legacy Avkon API around Symbian^4, which is expected to solidify in the latter half of 2010; this means that most current S60 applications will break except for low-level things that aren't using Avkon UI elements. That's a big deal and a bit of an issue considering the huge installed based of S60 users and apps -- but just like tearing off a bandage, it's gotta be done quickly and correctly for the health of the platform going forward.
