Nokia buys the rest of Symbian; will open source it

Posted Jun 28th, 2008 by Chief Gadgeteer

In a somewhat surprising, yet not so surprising move, Nokia bought up the rest of Symbian that it didn’t already own and will open-source the cell phone OS platform. Why? This is the strategy du jour in this age of Linux vs Microsoft, and now Android (Linux basically) vs iPhone/Win Mobile/Blackberry.

It’s a $410 million gamble for Nokia, but not a bad risk. Open-sourcing products many times results in amazing contributions and improvements to the products which in turn fuel sales of hardware, software and services surrounding that product.

Time will tell how Nokia fares. This writer thinks this will certainly help to keep Nokia firmly in the top tiers of the cell phone handset industry.

Posted in Phones