Nokia’s unveiled plans to buy all the shares in Symbian it doesn’t already own, before making the platform completely open source to foster “the most attractive platform for mobile innovation.”
It’s a bold move, costing Nokia a whopping €264 million, or £208 million, to snap up 52% of the shares in Symbian Limited from Sony Ericsson, Panasonic, Siemens and Samsung.
Once the deal is done, Nokia says it’ll transform the company into the Symbian Foundation, making the platform completely open source to compete with the likes of Google Android.
“”The wide support for this initiative, uniting the industry around the Symbian platform, reflects the strong gravitational pull it has for application developers and other ecosystem players,” explained Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
“We will drive efficient, open innovation by unifying the platform and simplifying the software supply chain, leveraging our experience from mobile devices.”
TBC | £208 million | Symbian Foundation
