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World's most popular smartphone OS, Symbian, is now 100% open and free

There has been a rather cryptic countdown on Twitter from the Symbian Foundation and now we learn that the countdown was designed to alert folks that Symbian is now fully open source and 100% free. This happened four months ahead of schedule and we should soon start to see Symbian-powered devices from different manufacturers. This new Symbian is different than the previous Symbian you are familiar with in S60. While Nokia is still a major contributor to Symbian, the Symbian Foundation stated that the goal by 2011 is to have Nokia contributing no more than 50% of the development work.
Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer

There has been a rather cryptic countdown on Twitter from the Symbian Foundation and now we learn that the countdown was designed to alert folks that Symbian is now fully open source and 100% free (thanks Symbian Guru). This happened four months ahead of schedule and we should soon start to see Symbian-powered devices from different manufacturers. This new Symbian is different than the previous Symbian you are familiar with in S60. While Nokia is still a major contributor to Symbian, the Symbian Foundation stated that the goal by 2011 is to have Nokia contributing no more than 50% of the development work.

Android has been promoted as an open source platform, but I understand that it is actually open with limits while this new Symbian platform is full and completely open. This openness may encourage developers to work to bring us smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and other devices in the future and is actually quite exciting. FYI, the six companies currently part of the Symbian Foundation include:

  • Fujitsu
  • Huawei
  • Nokia
  • Samsung Electronics
  • Sharp
  • Sony Ericsson

As I have mentioned before, 2010 will be a very interesting and exciting year for mobile enthusiasts.

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