Symbian opens source code, gains Siemens as shareholder

By
CommsDesign.com
(04/23/02, 01:34:23 PM EDT)

London, UK: Symbian is opening most of the source code for its operating system in a partnership initiative aimed at encouraging hardware and software developers to adopt the OS platform in next generation mobile phones and devices.

The company also announced at this week's Symbian Developers Expo, held here, that Siemens has taken a 5% share in the joint venture for £14.25m (about $21m) with all the other major shareholders reducing their stake. Psion has reduced its share to 26.6%, while Motorola, Ericsson/Sony Ericsson and Nokia will all now own 20%, and Matsushita 8.4%. The deal values Symbian at some £300m.

Symbian already makes available the OS to its licensees, which includes its main shareholders and some other key companies developing 'smartphones', and under the new 'Platinum Program', will now offer the same access to source code to selected hardware and software developers. Third parties that have already committed to joining the scheme include ARM, Texas Instruments, Intel ,Intuwave, M-Systems, 3G-Labs, Synovial and ST Microelectronics.

Platinum Partners will receive commercial services including technical support and joint marketing opportunities, as well as source code, test code, internal documentation, kernel and device driver programming interfaces and ROM building tools.

Symbian says it already gives mobile phone companies access to “all relevant source code”, accounting for about 95% of the total code, so they can develop highly integrated solutions.

The deal with Siemens is another step in Symbian's goal of making its operating system the one of choice for next generation mobile handsets. It is facing a tough battle to achieve this with Microsoft winning contracts for its OS from companies such as Samsung, which is emerging as the fastest growing mobile phone maker.

Siemens has long held a licence for Symbian OS, but its decision to take an equity stake strengthens the relationship. Rudi Lamprecht, the main board member of Siemens' Mobile Group, said “ having licensed Symbian OS for our Smartphone development last year, now we also want to take the chance to strongly influence the open standard for Smartphones”.

Symbian needs its main partners to start marketing devices soon that use its OS, since its revenue streams depend on royalties received from such companies. Until these smartphones start selling in big volumes, Symbian expects to remain loss-making. Nokia and Ericsson will start selling devices using the Symbian OS later this year.