The big company Nokia from a small country Finland is planning to make some major changes in the mobile industry. The first step is to acquire the remaining shares in Symbian, the software company that develops and licences Symbian OS, an open operating system for mobile devices. Nokia, which makes 40 per cent of all phones sold globally, will pay €264 million ($410 million) for the 52 per cent of British-based Symbian it does not already own. Secondly, Nokia would gradually open up the Symbian platform, making it open source. And thirdly, it is bringing all the leading mobile players together for the Symbian platform.

Plans for the Foundation have already received wide support from other industry leaders. The industry majors who will be part of the foundation include biggies like AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. Membership of this non-profit Foundation will be open to all organisations. This initiative is supported by current shareholders and management of Symbian Limited, who have been actively involved in its development.

The Foundation’s platform will build on the leading open mobile software platform, with more than 200 million phones, across 235 models, already shipped by multiple vendors and tens of thousands of third-party applications already available for Symbian OS-based devices.