Mobile industry endorsement for Symbian Foundation grows

Game-changing initiative attracts praise and further supporters

July 2008 – The initial board members of the Symbian Foundation have welcomed continuing support from mobile industry leaders for their plans for the Symbian Foundation and the evolution of Symbian OS™ as the leading, open platform for mobile innovation.

Plans for the Symbian Foundation were announced on June 24, 2008 by the initial board members; AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone, together with Symbian Limited. An additional 11 organizations supported the announcement on that day; today 9 further companies are confirming their endorsement of plans for the Symbian Foundation, including mobile operators 3, América Móvil and TIM, semiconductor manufacturer Marvell plus services and software providers Aplix, EB, EMCC Software, Sasken and TietoEnator.

“We were delighted with the broad support for plans for the Symbian Foundation”, said Kai Öistämö, Executive Vice President, Devices at Nokia, on behalf of the initial board members. “We believe that this is a significant move for our industry and are pleased that these additional market leaders agree and are giving their support to the initiative.”

“3 is pleased to support the Symbian Foundation and believe this is a significant development in open mobile software platforms”, said Fergal Walker, Director of Products at 3 UK. “3 has established a leading position in mobile internet with the highly acclaimed x-series suite of services, which has now evolved into an even more open approach to the internet on mobile devices. We believe that this initiative will provide an excellent opportunity to expand the range and quality of services for our customers.”

“América Móvil applauds plans for the Symbian Foundation” said Daniel Hajj, CEO of América Móvil. “By offering an open mobile software platform, the Symbian Foundation will drive innovation which will ultimately benefit consumers as well as the mobile industry. This innovation will allow América Móvil to deliver more exciting and compelling experiences for our customers”.

“Aplix is excited about the plans for the Symbian Foundation”, said Ryu Koriyama, Chairman & CEO of Aplix Corporation. “We intend to join the foundation and are committed to bring our extensive mobile & embedded experience to the Symbian Foundation, enabling faster time to market for device manufacturers using the Symbian Foundation platform with our Java solutions.”

“EB is very excited about plans for the Symbian Foundation and the intent to make the platform even more open”, said Pertti Korhonen, CEO at EB, Elektrobit Corporation. “We believe that this will benefit consumers as well as the whole mobile industry. The open platform will mean more players and products in the market. This in turn will increase the need for innovation partners and experienced solution providers such as EB.”

“EMCC Software welcomes plans for the Symbian Foundation and the move to a royalty-free and ultimately open source platform. This bold move has the potential to transform the whole industry”, said Leigh Edwards, CEO of EMCC Software. “This radical move will generate many new products based on the Symbian Foundation platform, attracting new companies as well as driving change for the established players. As a leading Symbian OS, UIQ and S60 Competence Center, with ten years experience, EMCC is ideally qualified to advise and assist companies in the ecosystem with this transformation.”

“As a longtime proponent of open source ecosystems, Marvell will be pleased to join the Symbian Foundation”, said David Young, Vice President and General Manager, Mobile Cellular Business Group at Marvell. “We plan to extend and leverage our significant experience in developing open source systems and work together with other industry leaders in the mobile ecosystem to build the foundation platform. Marvell brings extensive experience in open source technologies that will utilize the high-performance mobile application processors, low-power highly integrated communication processors and the open architecture of Marvell’s silicon.”

“We welcome this initiative“, said Edwin Moses, Senior Vice President, Sasken. ”Sasken already works with leading handset manufacturers and semiconductor vendors, across different implementations of the Symbian OS, providing IP and professional services. This gives us an intimate understanding of the benefits the Symbian Foundation will offer. We believe it will empower licensees of the Symbian Foundation platform to create more compelling converged devices and better customer experiences, while improving on economics and time to market. We are confident that this initiative will bind the community and enable leading companies like Sasken to serve their customers even better.”

"Symbian OS is one of the icons of the mobile eco-system, with an extremely successful track record”, said Ari Vanhanen, Executive Vice President and President of Telecom & Media at TietoEnator. “Regarding the future, the plans for the Symbian Foundation are a great step forward and I’m personally proud that we will be part of this initiative.”

“TIM has been pioneering the adoption of S60 on Symbian OS to deliver exciting experiences to our customers in a consistent and cost-effective way, across multiple devices, reinforcing TIM’s position as a leading innovator”, said Leopoldo Tranquilli, VP Handset and SIM Development, Value Added Services at TIM. “We’re happy to join this outstanding step in the evolution of Symbian OS and we welcome the open and collaborative approach, which we are keen to contribute to, based on our long-standing experience.”

Since plans for the Symbian Foundation were announced, more than 150 organizations have registered their interest in joining via the website at www.symbianfoundation.org.

As previously announced, the plans for the establishment of the Symbian Foundation and royalty-free licensing of foundation software are:

1. The acquisition of Symbian Limited by Nokia, expected to close in Q4, 2008.
2. Software assets are contributed to the foundation, including Symbian OS and S60 by Nokia, UIQ technology by Motorola and Sony Ericsson and MOAP(S) by NTT DOCOMO and Fujitsu.
3. This contributed software will be available under a royalty-free license to foundation members from the first day of Symbian Foundation operations, expected 1H 2009.
4. The Foundation will work to unify the platform, with the first unified foundation release expected in 2009.
5. The foundation will make the platform available in open source by June 2010 (two years from the Symbian Foundation announcement)
Symbian and all Symbian based trademarks and logos are trademarks of Symbian Software Limited. The operation of the proposed Symbian Foundation remains subject to regulatory approvals. Until such approvals are obtained, and the Symbian Foundation has become fully operational, Symbian Software Limited retains exclusive responsibility for all licensing and marketing activities related to Symbian OS.