News
Analysts react to Symbian Foundation
Stuart O'Brien Jun 24 2008, 4:05pm
What does it all mean? Lots of people are queuing up to tell us.
Now that the initial news is out, the analysts picking through the creation of the Symbian Foundation in an effort to determine what it means for the industry.
In short, Nokia has acquired all shares in Symbian and intends to make the eponymous OS available to Symbian Foundation members under a royalty-free licence.
These members include AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.
Ovum analyst Adam Leach says the creation of the Symbian Foundation reflects the fact that Symbian’s competitive landscape has changed rapidly over the past year, with new entrants and old competitors increasing their influence.
He says: "Linux has become a real threat to Symbian’s business with a number of Linux initiatives gaining serious momentum (e.g. LiMO and Google’s Open Handset Alliance). The success of LiMo is of particular importance here because the model that Nokia and others have adopted for the Symbian Foundation is essentially the same as that of LiMo. This is an endorsement of LiMo’s approach and demonstrates that Nokia believes that this is part of its success."
Leach's full note can be read here.
Elsewhere, Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi told Reuters: "This puts a lot of pressure on Microsoft right at a time when they are trying to really push into the consumer space... Lower price points are what operators and the market need to push smartphone adoption and dropping royalty is going to help that. For operators this offers a good alternative to Android."
Geoff Blaber of CCS Insight told the BBC: "Can the new entity really be open when Nokia has such a vested interest? This may be the stated goal, but in practice it might be more difficult to achieve. We'll have to scrutinise the fine print of the intellectual property rights and articles of association."
Finally, Nomura analyst Richard Windsor told Dow Jones that the Symbian Foundation is 'likely to create long-term benefits for the members as it will standardise interfaces and create critical mass, while also helping to ward off competition'.
