Symbian joins the Open-Source frontier

The Symbian mobile OS, the world’s number one mobile OS, has been a favourite of Nokia since before time began. However, Symbian releases its first completely open-source OS platform form today in a bid to compete with Android - arguably the best, and most popular, open source mobile OS currently around.

The Symbian mobile OS is often critiqued for its limited capabilities, especially when compared to the Apple, Android and Windows Mobile OSs.

Nevertheless, it is still the number one mobile OS in the world - although, this is largely to do with the fact that it is the de facto OS on most Nokia smartphones.

Starting today, programmers will be able to download, modify and create apps and widgets for the open-source Symbian platform - and all free of charge, of course.

According to analyst firm Gartner, Symbian has engineered the move in an attempt maintain its market share against Android, which is expected to become the number two mobile OS by 2012 - beating both Apple, Windows Mobile, and RIM.

In recent years, the Symbian platform has suffered at the hands of Apple and Android. The decision to move to open-source hopes to alleviate this issue and rejuvenate the fatigued mobile OS, which many smartphone users’ now avoid like the plague.

Commenting on this, Larry Berkin, general manager for Symbian in the U.S, said:

“We’ll see proliferation of converged devices based on Symbian happen this year.”

Smartphone Tracker wishes you the best of luck Larry.

In other interesting news, Symbian has announced plans for Symbian 3 and 4. Check out the story here.