Changes at the Symbian Foundation
Yesterday we made an announcement that the Symbian Foundation board has decided to transition the non-profit organization to being a pure licensing body. This means there will be an immediate reduction in staff and activity and by April 2011, the Symbian Foundation will be governed by a group of non-executive directors tasked with overseeing the organisation’s licensing function.
What I want to emphasize in this news is the difference between the Symbian Foundation and the Symbian platform, as the future of the two are totally separate. The reduction of Symbian Foundation activities does not mean the end of the Symbian platform. Far from it when you look at recent metrics and realise that 2010 has been the best year ever for the Symbian platform with around 40% growth year-on-year.
When it comes to the platform, we will be working with Nokia to support the plans that they have outlined to make the Symbian platform publicly available under an alternative direct and open model. I’m confident that this process will leave the Symbian platform and its ecosystem in very good hands.
Personally, I’ve been using the Nokia N8 for a few weeks and Symbian^3 is by far the healthiest I’ve seen the platform in the ten years that I’ve been with Symbian. Others clearly agree: in the second quarter of 2010 more than 25 million Symbian devices were shipped, which is equivalent to three people getting a Symbian device every second.
We also recently celebrated Symbian’s 400 millionth device shipment in Q3 2010 and looking forward, Gartner has predicted that in 2014, over 260 million Symbian smartphones will reach consumers during that year, including our billionth device. This continued growth means that the Symbian platform will be in more phones, in more markets, and, critically, with a more varied set of consumers than any other platform.
I’d also like to take a moment to say how immensely proud I am of the work that we’ve done in the Symbian Foundation. Earlier this year we delivered the biggest open source project ever, and we did it four months ahead of schedule. We’ve also taken big steps along the second stage of the path to building a truly open platform by establishing an active, contributing, community of companies.
Unfortunately – despite these tactical successes, the fact remains that the strategy for the Symbian platform needs to change to better suit the current market environment. Luckily we have the support of major device creators who will ensure that the Symbian platform will continue to move forward unabated.
More than that we can’t say right now as we are finalizing the details, but we will continue communicating as we have more decided. For those at SEE 2010, we hope you enjoy the show and to everyone, I hope you explore the opportunities offered by the Symbian platform.
