Earlier today Nokia announced it will acquire the remaining 52% share of the Symbian Limited to take over controlling interest of the mobile operating system provider with 91% of the outstanding shares.  This alone is interesting but what is fascinating is they also announced their intention to open source Symbian to create “the most attractive platform for mobile innovation and drive the development of new and compelling web-enabled applications”.  The press release reports the acquisition will be completed at 3.647 EUR/share at a total cost of 264m EUR. The new open source project responsible for the Symbian operating systems will be managed by the newly set up Symbian Foundation with support announced by Nokia, AT&T, Broadcom, Digia, NTT docomo, EA Mobile, Freescale, Fujitsu, LG, Motorola, Orange, Plusmo, Samsung, Sony Ericcson, ST, Symbian, Teleca, Texas Instruments, T Mobile, Vodaphone, and Wipro.

Other articles on the acquisition:

·         http://www.techcraver.com/2008/06/23/huge-news-nokia-acquires-symbian/

·         http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/nokia_acquires_symbian.php

This substantially changes the mobile operating system world with all major offerings other than Windows Mobile, iPhone, and RIM now available in open source form.  The timing of this acquisition strongly suggests that it’s a response to a perceived threat from Google Android ensuring that, even if Android never gets substantial market traction, it’s already had a lasting impact on the market.

                                                                --jrh

Sent my way by Eric Schoonover. 

Update: Added iPhone to prooprietary mobile O/S list (thanks Dare Obasanjo).

James Hamilton, Data Center Futures
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