Nokia, Symbian Won’t Be Googled by Android
10 November 2007Symbian, developer of the Symbian mobile phone operating system, told the BBC that Google’s dominance of the Web does not guarantee that it will succeed with its Android operating system for mobile devices. John Forsyth, VP of strategy at Symbian, said Google lacked experience in the mobile phone industry. “Search and a mobile phone platform are completely different things,” he said.
In the last quarter for which it has reported, Symbian said it had sold 20.4 million licenses for its smartphone software. Since it started nine years ago, more that 165 million phones have been shipped with the Symbian OS.
Talking about Android, Simon Ainslie, Nokia UK’s managing director, told the BBC that his company is always open to discussions on Android and the Open Handset Alliance, which Google founded. He said that Nokia is having ongoing discussions with Google but is not ready to make any commitment or discuss it at this time.
Nokia is the world’s largest maker of mobile phones and has about a 40% market share. It founded Symbian and was its largest shareholder until it sold off its share in order to entice completive handset makers to put Symbian on their handsets. It’s the largest user of Symbian.
Ainslie said Nokia is very happy with its partnership with Symbian. “It’s the world’s most used platform. It’s not a simple solution to make a platform work on a mobile.” Referring to the fact that Android is the latest in a string of Linux operating systems that have been customized for mobile devices, he said, “It’s a bit like the common cold. It (Linux for mobile phones) keeps coming round and then we go back to business.”
Forsyth told the BBC, that developing a “mobile OS is a very specialized form of rocket science. It’s not search rocket science.” He said that about every three months a mobile Linux initiative is launched.
What many, including Google, see as Android’s greatest strength is its ability to attract thousands of programmers to develop application software for the platform. Forsyth has doubts. “It’s very clear what developers want - volume and a stable platform that doesn’t keep breaking. You have to have a lot of zeroes in your sales figures before a developer gets out of bed,” he said.
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