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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Keen to get the message out, Finnish handset giant Nokia said Wednesday that its forthcoming flagship device – the N8 – will be available to purchase in stores on October 22.
Still in damage control mode, Finnish handset giant Nokia assured the world on Thursday that its flagship Symbian^3 device, the N8, has started shipping.
The number of smartphone users worldwide is expected to exceed the one billion mark by 2013, with growth driven by ongoing competition between top tier OEMS and challengers such as Google, RIM, Apple and Microsoft, all of which are racing to create the best possible user experience at lower pricing points.
Finnish handset vendor Nokia launched a suite of new smartphones at its London Nokia World event on Tuesday, amid the boardroom turmoil that has seen departure announcements for its two most senior executives within days of one another.
Finnish handset vendor Nokia has sold its wireless modem business to Japanese semiconductor manufacturer Renesas for $200m. The announcement came on the heels of a blog post from Anssi Vanjoki, head of the newly created Solutions unit within Nokia, in which he pledged to launch a fightback that would re-establish Nokia as leader in the smartphone space.
The first device based on the fully open source version of Symbian emerged from Nokia’s development facilities this week.
Japanese-Swedish handset joint venture Sony Ericsson trumpeted a return to profit Friday morning as it reported its first quarter 2010 results. The firm said that net profit for the quarter was €21m, but noted that restructuring costs were not taken into account.
Using the power of brand to reach consumers, Nokia on Wednesday hopped into bed with Skype to make the VoIP client available to some 200 million smartphone users worldwide.
Handset giant Nokia is planning an overhaul of its Symbian user interface in 2010, and will also bring out a flagship device powered by the Maemo Linux-based operating system the same year.
Finnish handset vendor Nokia on Tuesday unveiled the latest version of Qt, its cross platform application and user interface framework, providing support for more platforms including Symbian, Windows 7, Mac OS 10.6 and the upcoming Maemo 6.
It’s been a rough week for struggling handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson, with issues affecting two of its flagship devices in the UK.
On Monday popular music streaming service Spotify announced the launch of a mobile app for the Symbian platform, making the service potentially available on millions more devices.
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