Plans for the Symbian Foundation and the evolution of Symbian OS™ as the leading, open platform for mobile innovation continue to receive strong support from companies throughout the mobile ecosystem. Today, Acrodea, Brycen, HI Corporation, Ixonos, KTF, Opera Software, Sharp, TapRoot Systems and UIQ Technology are adding their endorsement for the planned foundation.
Since June 2008, 40 companies have confirmed commitment to the initiative, including the ten initial board members: AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.
Since plans for the Symbian Foundation were announced, hundreds of organizations have registered their interest in joining the foundation via the website at www.symbianfoundation.org.
As previously announced, the plans for the establishment of the Symbian Foundation and royalty-free licensing of foundation software are:
- The acquisition of Symbian Limited by Nokia, expected to close in Q4, 2008, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
- Software assets are contributed to the foundation, including Symbian OS and S60 by Nokia, UIQ technology by Motorola and Sony Ericsson and MOAP(S) by NTT DOCOMO and Fujitsu.
- This contributed software will be available under a royalty-free license to foundation members from the first day of Symbian Foundation operations, expected 1H 2009.
- The Foundation will work to unify the platform, with the first unified foundation release expected in 2009.
- The foundation will work to make the platform available in open source by June 2010 (two years from the Symbian Foundation announcement)
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