Symbian Belle brings smartphones to the mass market

Troubled handset giant Nokia has unveiled the latest flavour of its Symbian operating system, which it will use to attack the mass market smartphone sector. Symbian Belle is the latest in a series of planned software updates, increasing the number of home screens from three to six and enhancing the capabilities of live widgets.

Keeping up with market trends, Symbian Belle features single-tap NFC sharing and pairing capability, which allows contacts, videos and images to be shared with other NFC-enabled devices, as well as pairing with NFC-enabled accessories such as speakers and headsets.

The 700 is Nokia’s smallest smartphone to date, weighing 96gm with dimensions of 110 x 50.7 x 9.7 mm, a 1Ghz processor, 3.2 inch AMOLED screen and 2GB of internal memory and 5MP full focus camera with LED flash.

Moving up the scale is the 701, based on a 3.5 inch ClearBlack display, with a 1GHz processor, 8MP full focus camera with dual LED flash and 2 X digital zoom, 2nd front-facing camera and HD video capture. It comes with 8GB internal memory.

While at the lower end is the 600, with built-in FM radio antenna and FM transmitter, supported by an internal loudspeaker, 1 GHz processor; 5MP full focus camera with LED flash and HD video capture, and 2GB of internal memory.

“With the announcement today Nokia has made it clear that Symbian will continue to play an important role in its product portfolio alongside Windows Phone 7,” said Nick McQuire, analyst with IDC. “There is a sense of urgency in the way improvements and innovation are being delivered to the platform that demonstrates how committed Nokia is to make Symbian products a competitive smartphone choice.”

Nokia outsourced development of the floundering operating system to consultancy Accenture back in April, transitioning some 3,000 employees to the firm as part of the deal. Symbian will continue to be used on Nokia’s mass market devices, while Microsoft’s Windows Phone will provide the basis for the top tier offerings.

Nokia’s new plan is being executed but the firm is by no means out of the woods. The firm recently said its difficulties are such that it was no longer appropriate to provide annual targets for 2011. Nokia is being undercut in the low end, high volume segment of the market by increasingly powerful Chinese manufacturers with far lower cost bases. Meanwhile it is still anonymous in the lucrative smartphone segment, where its partnership with Microsoft has yet to bear fruit. CEO Stephen Elop came close to promising that this situation would change before the year is out, saying: “We have increased confidence that we will ship our first Nokia product with Windows Phone in the fourth quarter 2011.”

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At a time when just about every telecoms legal suit seems to involve Western companies suing their Chinese counterparts, or vice versa, Apple is taking its “Think Different” motto to its logical conclusion and suing everyone, regardless of nationality. With its announcement last week that it was going to sue Samsung for “blatant copying”, however, the Informer is beginning to wonder if the plot hasn’t well and truly been lost – after all, Samsung only makes the CPUs and LCDs for the iPhone.

According to Apple, that’s not the only point of commonality: “It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad,” quoth Apple, before going on to accuse the Galaxy maker of “slavishly” following its lead, right down to the cardboard boxes it ships its products in (called “Trade Dress” in iSpeak).

If slavish following is indeed a crime, one can only conclude that the hordes of iSheep lining up outside Apple shops would be better off skipping the next iUpgrade. Next week: St. Steve of Cupertino sues everyone with Jobs…

In the meantime, Samsung is entering into the spirit of things by launching a countersuit. Rather than even try to suggest that its products don’t resemble Apple’s, Samsung has decided to change the subject a smidgeon, accusing its biggest customer of stealing its technology to optimise data transmission, reducing power usage during data transmission and a technique for tethering a mobile phone to a PC.  If Samsung decides to suspend production while the two lock horns in court, things could get very interesting indeed.

In a “Me Too” world, Apple and Samsung aren’t the only ones filing legal paperwork. This week, AT&T filed the official documentation for its merger with T-Mobile with America’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC). All 381 pages of it.

Predictably enough, the tome is heavy on things like how the proposed merger will solve the telcos’ respective spectrum crises and how the explosion in mobile data usages is threatening to bring their networks to a halt. Indeed, according to AT&T, in the first 5-7 weeks of 2015, it expects to carry all of the mobile traffic volume it carried during 2010, meaning that it faces “severe capacity constraints” and “cannot simply wait for the next major auction to resolve them.”

Somewhat bizarrely, the document consistently states that AT&T’s ability to offer quality services is deteriorating faster than the Informer can type. In the not-inconceivable event that the deal is blocked, how many customers will stick around to see if the network with the most dropped calls can turn a profit on dead air?

And speaking of profits, it’ll be very interesting to see if the document’s statement that T-Mobile customers will be allowed to keep their rate plans will survive the merger. If not, no worries – according to the document, “other providers already fill – or could easily move to fill – the competitive role T-Mobile occupies today.” And if you’re wondering who these alternatives might be, “Sprint has re-emerged with a combination of first-to-market 4G services, attractive devices and aggressive pricing,” while MetroPCS and Leap offer “inexpensive, no-contract service with nationwide coverage…and have won dramatic gains in total subscribership.” With that kind of free advertising, one can only assume the growth will continue.

One telco likely to be wishing that everything AT&T says in its document is true is rival Verizon Wireless. AT&T’s assertion that Verizon claims “unequalled network advantages in the provision of high-end LTE services” will come as empty praise following the collapse of America’s largest wireless provider’s LTE network yesterday. Users of the HTC Thunderbolt handset reported difficulties getting online as the telco admitted there was “an issue” with the service. At the time of writing, the service was still down, and no further details as to the cause or when services will resume were available.

Thunderbolt users are reporting that the issue appears to extend beyond simply being unable to access the LTE service; many are complaining that they can’t connect to 3G or any other service, while subscribers to Verizon’s LTE wireless access card and hotspot offerings have also been unable to connect. According to a statement from Verizon, LTE handset users will still be able to make calls but some “may experience a 1XRTT data connection during this time.” The company said it expected to see the network restored on a market-by-market basis.

For Verizon, the timing couldn’t be worse: the company was due to launch its second LTE-enabled handset, Samsung’s Droid Charge, today. While there’s been no official announcement on the subject, it seems unlikely that the launch will go ahead while services are down.

Verizon isn’t the only ones with network problems this week. Vodafone Hutchison Australia’s coverage troubles looked set to deepen, with a proposed class action suit against the telco for poor service gaining ground in the country. When the idea was first suggested at the beginning of this year, about 9,000 claimants expressed interest; that number has more than doubled to 22,000 in the past couple of months, according to reports in The Australian.

The report comes on the back of a weekend network outage that saw VHA customers unable to send or receive SMSs on Easter Sunday. Disgruntled subscribers vented their anger on Twitter and Facebook, with the former managing to make “Vodafail” the trending topic in Australia for the day. VHA apologised to customers on a blog post and offered 12 hours of free SMS services on May 1^st by way of compensation, but comments posted in response suggest that the gesture is unlikely to make much difference to increasingly negative perceptions of the carrier’s service.

Nokia’s Symbian operating system must be feeling similarly unloved, with the announcement on Wednesday of plans to outsource its development to consultancy firm Accenture. As part of the process, Nokia will also transition some 3,000 employees in China, Finland, India, the UK and the US to Accenture.

The move casts Nokia is the role of hardware developer. Under the collaboration agreement, Accenture will provide Symbian-based software development and support services to Nokia for future smartphones, extending beyond Symbian. Accenture will provide mobility software, business and operational services around the Windows Phone platform to Nokia and other ecosystem participants.

In October 2009, Accenture acquired Nokia’s professional services unit that provides engineering and support of the Symbian operating system to mobile device manufacturers and service providers, and which then served as a key building block in Accenture’s Mobility services portfolio. But the changes don’t stop there: As part of measures to reduce its Devices & Services operating expenses by €1bn for the full year 2013, Nokia will reduce its global workforce by about 4,000 employees by the end of 2012, with the majority of reductions in Denmark, Finland and the UK. The company’s research and product development sites will be hit hard, with the expansion of some sites and the contraction or closure of others.

Speaking of closure, it’s time for the Informer to wrap things up for the week and prepare for the impending nuptials tomorrow. Despite the current litigious environment, it seems that the Happy Couple are hell-bent on saying “iDo”, so it can only be hoped that the bride’s frock doesn’t look suspiciously like an iPad.

Take care,

The Informer.

Nokia will outsource 3,000 jobs and cut 4,000 others

In what appears to be another move to distance itself from Symbian, Nokia on Wednesday announced plans to outsource development of the floundering operating system to consultancy and outsourcing firm Accenture. As part of the process, the Finnish giant will also transition some 3,000 employees to the outsourcing firm.

The affected employees are currently based in China, Finland, India, the UK and the US and over time, with the process starting before year end, the company will seek opportunities to “retrain and redeploy transitioned employees”.

The move casts Nokia in the role of hardware developer. Under the collaboration agreement, Accenture will provide Symbian-based software development and support services to Nokia for future smartphones, extending beyond Symbian. Accenture will provide mobility software, business and operational services around the Windows Phone platform to Nokia and other ecosystem participants.

“This collaboration demonstrates our ongoing commitment to enhance our Symbian offering and serve our smartphone customers,” said Jo Harlow, executive vice president for Smart Devices, Nokia. “As we move our primary smartphone platform to Windows Phone, this transition of skilled talent to Accenture shows our commitment to provide our Symbian employees with potential new career opportunities.”

In October 2009, Accenture acquired Nokia’s professional services unit that provides engineering and support of the Symbian operating system to mobile device manufacturers and service providers, and which then served as a key building block in Accenture’s Mobility services portfolio.

But the changes don’t stop there. As part of measures to reduce its Devices & Services operating expenses by €1bn for the full year 2013, the Finnish firm will reduce its global workforce by about 4,000 employees by the end of 2012, with the majority of reductions in Denmark, Finland and the UK. The company’s research and product development sites will be hit hard, with the expansion of some sites and the contraction or closure of others.

“At Nokia, we have new clarity around our path forward, which is focused on our leadership across smart devices, mobile phones and future disruptions,” said Stephen Elop, Nokia president and CEO. “However, with this new focus, we also will face reductions in our workforce. This is a difficult reality, and we are working closely with our employees and partners to identify long-term re-employment programs for the talented people of Nokia.”

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Nokia's Ovi store and Symbian shipments are going up despite pending R&D cutbacks

Nokia’s Ovi app store has hit the five million downloads a day mark, despite speculation regarding its future since the Finnish manufacturer entered a deal with Microsoft earlier this year. The app store offers more than 40,000 products but many believe it’s unlikely to survive in the context of Nokia’s agreement to ship Windows 7 phones from 2012 onwards. Microsoft has its own app store, Windows Marketplace, and it seems unlikely that the pair can co-exist in an ultra-competitive market.

Nokia said that the growth was “propelled by the latest Symbian devices, which account for about 15 per cent of the daily downloads” from a 200-million-strong Symbian user base sets it on an interesting future course; the likes of Gartner and IDC are predicting that Nokia Symbian phones will be replaced almost entirely by W7 ones by 2013. This despite Nokia’s announcement earlier this week that it plans to ship at least 150 million Symbian smartphones in the coming year and will continue to offer software updates for the platform. This leaves the company with support and content obligations that will extend beyond any tapering-off of its home-grown offerings in favour of Microsoft’s.

Nokia’s work on beta applications for in-app billing and advertising on Symbian are likely to attract more developers to the platform, leaving speculators pondering exactly what the manufacturer’s strategy going forward could be. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop told the Financial Times that its leadership team had identified the transition from Symbian to W7 as one of the most challenging aspects of its new strategy; Jo Harlow of its smart devices division told the FT that “The easier task is to start Windows Phone from a fresh perspective, but the more difficult task is to continue to operate Symbian.”

News of the Ovi store’s success comes on the back of reports today that Nokia may cut up to 6,000 jobs from its research and development division as it prepares to cement its alliance with Microsoft. Since 2007, the Symbian platform has slipped from a market-leading position in excess of 64 per cent to a predicted 19 per cent for this year. The deal with Microsoft is expected to be finalised by the end of this month.

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Nokia says Symbian is no longer open source

Nokia has announced that its Symbian platform is no longer open source. The news comes less than a year after the now-defunct Symbian Foundation released the first completely open version of the OS, with Nokia saying that its “open and direct” model referred to its business plan rather than the Symbian source code.

With complete control of the platform having reverted to Nokia late last month, the manufacturer announced that “we are not maintaining Symbian as an open source development project.”

Under the new set-up, developers will be required to register for a licence to access the source code for the OS. According to Nokia, this will “enable us to continue working with the remaining Japanese OEMs and the relatively small community of platform development collaborators we are already working with.” In addition, Nokia will monitor registrations and will only approve those which collaborate with Nokia.  Last week, Nokia announced the online re-launch of the Symbian code in a post entitled “We are Open!” When software legalese blog Groklaw inspected the licence and declared it non-open, Nokia was inundated with queries, prompting the latest announcement clarifying the position.

Although many observers believe that this looks like another step in the slow winding up of what was once the world’s leading mobile platform, Nokia has said that it plans to ship at least 150 million Symbian smartphones in the coming year. The company will also continue to offer software updates for the platform.

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Nokia appears to remain committed to Symbian

Despite its February announcement of a partnership deal with Microsoft, Nokia has reiterated its commitment to the Symbian platform.

Many interpreted Nokia’s decision to adopt the Windows 7 mobile platform as the end of the road for Symbian; the once dominant platform has been struggling to keep up with Android in the market-share stakes and recently slipped behind it for the first time.

But Reuters has reported that, in an open letter to developers, head of developer relations Purnima Kochikar said that: “We will be selling [Symbian] devices long after Windows Phone devices from Nokia have already started to appear.” Kochikar is said to have followed up with the statement that “Over the past few weeks we have been evaluating our Symbian roadmap and now feel confident we will have a strong portfolio of new products during our transition period – i.e. 2011 and 2012.” According to Reuters, the letter also includes statements that forthcoming Symbian devices will offer improved performance such as faster processing and graphics speeds.

Last week, Ovum research forecast that Symbian phones will continue to be available in some markets until 2016. Principal analyst Adam Leach said that, while Nokia expects to ship some 150 million Symbian-based handsets beyond 2012, the partnership between the Finnish giant and Microsoft “has redrawn the smartphone market and will result in a significant reduction in shipments of Symbain-based handsets has Nokia transitions to Windows as its primary smartphone platform.”

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Android's popularity among a range of vendors helped it to its lead

The Google-backed Android operating system overtook Nokia’s Symbian during the fourth quarter of 2010 to become the leading platform in the smartphone segment according to market analyst firm Canalys. Shipments of Android devices reached 32.9 million by Canalys’ estimation, with Symbian trailing on 31.0 million. Symbian’s performance keeps Nokia in first position among the vendors, however, with 28 per cent market share in the top tier, the analyst said.

The increasing popularity of smartphones saw segment shipments grow by 89 per cent to 101.2 million units for the quarter, pushing the number for 2010 as a whole to just shy of 300 million units.

Android has benefited from the allegiance of a number of key vendors, LG, Samsung, Acer and HTC chief among them, Canalys said. Shipments for these four players were up 4,127 per cent, 1,474 per cent, 709 per cent and 371 per cent respectively year on year, with HTC and Samsung responsible for almost 45 per cent of Android shipments for the quarter.

“2010 has been a fantastic year for the smart phone market. After a difficult 2009, the speed with which the market has recovered has required real commitment and innovation from vendors and they have risen to the challenge,” said Canalys VP and principal analyst Chris Jones. “But vendors cannot afford to be complacent. 2011 is set to be a highly competitive year with vendors looking to use new technology, such as dual-core processors, NFC and 3D displays, to differentiate their products and maintain value.”

Android could be set to enjoy a further boost this year if a widely anticipated shift in OS strategy from Nokia comes to pass. New CEO Stephen Elop, a software specialist by trade, is expected to soon put his stamp on company direction, with the company’s long term fidelity to Symbian likely to be brought to an end.

Nokia will hold a strategy and financial day in London on February 11^th, where Elop is expected to announce the firm’s new directions. At the release of its most recent financial results late last month, Elop said: “Nokia faces some significant challenges in our competitiveness and our execution. In short, the industry changed, and now it’s time for Nokia to change faster.” He added: “In addition to great device experiences we must build, capitalise and/or join a competitive ecosystem. The ecosystem approach we select must be comprehensive and cover a wide range of utilities and services that customers expect today and anticipate in the future.

While the momentum that Android already enjoys would make it a likely choice for Nokia, Elop’s familiarity with Microsoft could see the Finnish vendor adopt WP7 as well, or instead of, the Google-backed OS.

After several quarters of bad performance and loss of market share, Nokia appointed Stephen Elop as its CEO to get the company back on track. Yet no radical changes have been made since his appointment apart from the departure of some key executives and bringing Symbian back home.

This February, after almost five months in the office, Stephen Elop will update investors on Nokia’s new strategic directions. Informa Telecoms & Media believes he should take this opportunity to announce a much-needed new strategy for converged devices, including smartphones, tablets and smart-books. In this segment, the company saw its market share declining from more than 50% in 2008 to less than 36% in 2010. This decline is partly due to the investment Nokia made to open-source Symbian. The vendor suffered all that pain, only to bring it all back in-house, costing it almost two years in the smartphone race – and the competition is not diminishing.
Today, Nokia can no longer afford to lose market share in this environment at a time when the mobile industry is converging very fast with the computing market. To put it into context, Informa expects that, by 2015, sales of smartphones in Europe, Nokia’s main market, will represent 74% of the region’s total handset sales. So any further loss in market share in this high-ASP and high-margin market could induce a loss in the company’s overall value share and result in a failure by Nokia to maintain its leadership and brand prestige in the global mobile market.

So far, Nokia has persistently used Symbian to compete in the converged devices landscape, but is this platform fit enough to stand competition from alternative OSs? Informa has long maintained that Symbian is not flexible enough to handle the innovation required for modern features, hardware solutions and new functionalities that are now musts for converged devices. In addition, the transition to the open-source world was difficult and has resulted in delays in the release of newer versions, while the competing platforms are evolving at a much higher speed. Instead of focusing on innovation to differentiate itself in the smartphone market, Nokia went on offering free navigation on all Symbian phones in its portfolio and also decided to slash prices and reduce margins associated with these phones, which has helped it to improve its sales of Symbian phones during the last two or three quarters.

Having said that, Informa continues to believe that, in the mid-term, Symbian is the right platform for powering low-end smartphones that target the mid-range segment of the mobile handset market. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Symbian is no longer an option for Nokia to compete in the high-end smartphone and tablet markets. It was striking that Nokia did not make any impression at the CES this January, while almost all device manufacturers revealed innovative smartphones and tablets powered by various mobile OSs. In addition, systematic delays in launching flagship devices, such as the N8 and the E7, do not help the industry’s confidence in the Symbian brand. This lack of confidence has gone even further in the US, with the cancelation of key Symbian smartphones – for example, the X7 and the Nuron 2 which were meant to be launched this quarter exclusively with AT&T and T-Mobile, respectively.

Nokia has already revealed that it will use MeeGo to tackle competition in the tablet and high-end smartphone markets. But could MeeGo on its own enable Nokia to regain market share in these segments? A straight answer to this question is NO!!

Given the growing momentum of innovative devices powered by competing OSs, including Android, iOS, QNX, WebOS and Windows Phone, MeeGo is unlikely to make any strong impact on the market in the near future. It was striking that, nearly a year after MeeGo’s launch, no enabled device was demonstrated at the CES this year while a host of Android smartphones and tablets were launched during the show.

In the longer term, MeeGo could be a success if Nokia takes the risk of investing massively in order to guarantee enough support from the industry – from the developer community in particular. But is this really a risk that Nokia should take while alternative OSs have already hosted a number of innovative features and have received a wide acceptance by both the industry and the developer community? Nokia is a large-scale vendor and relying on a single OS in a fast-growing converged devices market is strategically wrong. If Nokia decides to carry on with its in-house OS strategy, then the company might face the risk of continually having to cut prices for its smartphones to remain competitive and for it to maintain its market share.

Would it not be wiser for Nokia to adopt a multiple-OS strategy and deploy OSs such as Android and Windows Phone 7 in parallel with MeeGo to address high-end smartphones and and tablet PCs? Would this strategy not allow Nokia to make significant savings in operating expenses, compete better on both time-to-market and pricing, and provide existing Symbian users with a better path for upgrading their phones? Would it not enable the company to free up resources and focus more on what it does best – the device design – in order to maintain its large-scale and brand advantages? Would it not allow Nokia to strengthen its position in the North American market, a region that has proved difficult for the company to penetrate so far? Finally, would it not be an interesting offer to its partnering operators that are wary of locking themselves into a single OS?
However, although multiple-OS adoption could enable Nokia to win back market share and regain more support by the operator community, there are two main downsides to such a strategy:

• Nokia will have to rely on both Google and Microsoft to update their OSs and could lock itself into the roadmap of these partners.

• Both Microsoft Windows Phone and Google’s Android are more than just terminal OSs, they are each a part of a wider ecosystem for applications development, distribution and monetization.

The adoption of these OSs could compromise all the investments that Nokia has made in developing its own ecosystem including Ovi and NavteQ. However, the company could use its Qt to create a cross-platform environment across all these OSs and steer application development back to its Ovi ecosystem.

In summary, as the pressure of the financial community is growing on Nokia, Stephen Elop will use Nokia’s Analyst Day on February 11 to reveal some new strategic decisions he will take in order to bring Nokia back on track. Informa believes that the new CEO will focus mainly on Nokia’s strategy for converged devices, including smartphones and mobile broadband devices. He should enlighten the industry on the future and the roadmap for both Symbian and MeeGo. He could also potentially reveal a new market segmentation whereby a multiple-OS strategy could be deployed, with Symbian and Android focusing on low-end smartphones, while high-end smartphones and tablet devices could be addressed simultaneously by MeeGo, Android 2.x and 3.x, and Windows Phone.

Nokia finally accepts the inevitable and brings Symbian in house

The Symbian SEE shows kicked off in Amsterdam on Tuesday and it’s probably quite an interesting event to be at. If only because all the rumours were true: the Foundation will transition into another entity and the Symbian operating system itself will finally be absorbed by Nokia.

In the wake of mass abandonment of the platform, leaving Nokia as its sole supporter, and news of financial troubles, the Symbian Foundation will take on the role of a “legal entity responsible for licensing software and other intellectual property, such as the Symbian trademark.”

Of course, licensing that trademark requires a lot less manpower, so widespread job cuts are expected. “By April 2011, the Symbian Foundation will be governed by a group of non-executive directors tasked with overseeing the organisation’s licensing function,” the organisation said.

Nokia meanwhile, is to finally accept the inevitable and commit to making the future development of the Symbian platform its own responsibility while continuing to make the OS available to the ecosystem via an alternative direct and open model.

“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.

“The future of Symbian as a platform does not depend on the existence of the foundation,” said Jo Harlow, senior vice president of smartphones at Nokia. “The changes announced by the foundation have no impact on Nokia’s Symbian device roadmaps or shipping commitments.”

None of this has really come as a surprise. What did come as a surprise however was the creation of a consortium called SYMBEOSE, which stands for “Symbian – the Embedded Operating System for Europe,” last week. According to the consortium: “The precise aim of the Symbeose consortium is to instigate a series of state-of-the-art development projects that will create new opportunities for Symbian’s global stakeholders,” whatever that means. Nevertheless, the move has got the backing of the European Commission (EC) and something called the Artemis Joint Technology Initiative, as well as €22m in funding, which should keep the remaining employees of the foundation going for a little longer.

Lee Williams exits the Symbian Foundation

The Symbian Foundation issued a cursory statement late on Tuesday announcing the immediate departure of executive director Lee Williams for personal reasons, fuelling speculation about the future of the organisation.

If the industry gossip at the Open Software in Mobile  event taking place in London on Tuesday and Wednesday this week is to be believed, the Foundation is in serious trouble. One speaker even suggested that the Foundation’s closure could be imminent.

The Foundation has not offered further detail on Williams’ departure. It said that  Tim Holbrow, who formerly held the position of CFO, has been promoted with immediate effect.

Since the official launch of the Symbian Foundation in April 2009, which marked a complete change in direction for the business – the adoption of an open source software strategy and moves to distance it from Nokia – it has been dogged by speculation that all is not well.

David Wood, one of the platform’s old guards – he was an employee of Psion back in the EPOC days and a co-founder of Symbian – left the Foundation under a cloud in October 2009, just as the SEE show kicked off. This year’s show takes place in about three weeks time, although its future looks a little uncertain.

One high profile speaker at the OSiM show told Telecoms.com that Williams had failed to move S60 forward in his previous position overseeing the platform at Nokia and has been made the fall guy for Symbian. Another said he understood that the Foundation would close its doors inside three months due to cashflow problems.

Martin Garner, director of mobile internet at analyst house CCS Insight, who chaired the OSiM conference said that Williams was a strange choice to lead the Foundation because he had run S60 for the previous five years at Nokia and many of the issues that needed to be addressed by the Symbian Foundation resulted directly from S60: “A large part of the Symbian difficulty was his fault,” Garner said.

The Foundation took a gamble with its rather wacky and obtuse branding – the sheep on the unicycle and the big yellow heart – which may now come into question, with the platform lacking support across the vendor community.

Sony Ericsson and Samsung have both called time on Symbian-based product development, leaving only Nokia with products and plans to speak of. This is a worrying situation for an organisation seeking to pitch its platform  against the likes of Android. As one OSiM speaker noted; the only option now is for Nokia to consume Symbian. “That is what they should have done in the first place, rather than take Google head on,” he said.

On a more positive note, the OSiM session on MeeGo, Nokia’s Linux-based smartphone platform, was well attended and it seems there are high hopes for the platform. It has been noted, however, that Nokia is taking rather a long time to bring product to market.

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