Yesterday’s news that Nokia acquired location based social network Plazes, was worthy only of making our Pilgrim’s Picks. Today’s news that Nokia has acquired mobile platform Symbian–and plans to make it open source–is definitely worthy of its own post.
Nokia already owned 48% of Symbian, but is willing to pay around $410 million in cash to acquire the remaining 52%.
So, what’s Nokia’s plan for Symbian?
Nokia on Tuesday also said it and other mobile phone makers such as Motorola, Inc , LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson along with operators AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone Group and chipmakers Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics have formed the non-profit Symbian foundation to drive innovation in mobile services.
Nokia will contribute Symbian and its S60 software assets to the foundation, while other members will put in their UIQ and MOAP software to create a new joint Symbian platform in 2009.
OK, but what’s Nokia’s real plan?
Oh I see. Well Nokia’s real plan is likely to get a head start on Google’s delayed Android, while also giving Apple’s iPhone something to think about. With cutting edge phone hardware–99.999% of Silicon Valley owns a Nokia (or at least Robert Scoble does)–combined with Symbian’s software, Nokia will make sure the mobile phone industry is not a one horse race.
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