Nokia to Acquire Symbian Ltd.
Nokia plans to acquire Symbian Ltd., the U.K.-based creator and supplier of the Symbian OS that runs in many Nokia devices. To that end, Nokia recently offered 264 million euros to acquire the 52 percent of the shares of Symbian Ltd. it does not already own. When the offer is completed Nokia will own all of Symbian Ltd.Nokia officials call the acquisition a fundamental step in the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, recently announced by Nokia along with AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, and Vodafone. The companies have also agreed to create a single open mobile software platform by combining Symbian OS, the S60 platform, UIQ and Mobile Oriented Application Platform (MOAP). The foundation will provide a unified platform with a common UI framework, and a full platform will be available for all foundation members under a royalty-free license.
