Nokia to drop Symbian by 2012?

While the transition maybe a slow one, reports suggest that Nokia is planning to drop Symbian in favour of the Linux-based Maemo OS for its consumer N-Series devices by 2012.

According to reports, unnamed Maemo representatives at an event in London last night confirmed that Nokia plans to switch over operating system duties from Symbian to Maemo on all its flagship devices by 2012.

"While it is our policy not to disclose details of our product roadmap, we'd like to explicitly communicate that we remain firmly committed to Symbian as our smartphone platform of choice. Any speculation on what our 2012 roadmap, including operating systems and product branding, are completely premature," said a Nokia Spokesperson when contaced by Smartphone Tracker.

They added: "As we have stated earlier, Nokia has multiple platforms to serve different purposes and address different markets. Symbian is more successful than ever in bringing smartphones to the masses. Maemo is our software of choice for devices based on technology that you’d typically find inside a desktop computer. It delivers a different user experience and enables us to widen the market we can address."

In addition, separate reports have suggested that Nokia’s Ovi Store will eventually host both Symbian and Maemo based applications and widgets.

Adding further weight to these claims is a statement which was made by Maemo’s Head of Marketing, Peter Schneider, back in August, who said:

“Nokia is not replacing Symbian with Maemo... the two will continue to co-exist.”