Nokia on Tuesday said it will buy the 52.1% of Symbian it doesn’t already own for approximately 264 million euros (US$410 million) in cash and will make the software royalty-free in response to the rising threat of companies like Apple and Google.
Aude Lagorce reports for MarketWatch, “Nokia, which currently owns a 47.9% stake in the company, is buying out the shareholdings of Panasonic, Siemens AG and Ericsson. Nokia also expects Samsung to accept the offer.”
“In recent years Symbian has faced rising competition from Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile, Research in Motion and Apple, Inc., who are all making operating systems for complex phones that also work as organizers, e-mail devices and music players,” Lagorce reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Some are more complex than others. 
Lagorce continues, “Among the technical challenges that Symbian must quickly respond to, Geoff Blaber of telecoms research and consulting firm CSS Insight mentioned Apple’s touch-screen user interface, high performance and easy-to-use development tools.”
MacDailyNews Take: Watch those patents now, Nokia; with your antiquated, woefully-outclassed, and, yes, now wholly-owned, mobile OS. There’s a reason Symbian will be royalty-free, folks: you get what you pay for.
Lagorce continues, “Nokia expects the deal to close by the end of the year and to weigh on earnings in 2009 but to boost results from 2011.”
MacDailyNews Take: You’re dreamin’, Nokia.
Full article here.
Looks like Nokia is following Microsoft’s business model. Buy companies with outdated technology for too much money and then help them die.
Keep up the good work Nokia, Microsoft’s body will not take up the entire graveyard.
That’s a nice move of desperation. If you need a OS based platform to try to compete with the iPhone – Go out and buy one.
Too bad the technology is just sooo old
Very good news… for iPhone
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Can anyone find that quote from Nokia’s CEO? The one about Apple’s iPhone which wasn’t very competitive in his eyes? Anyone???
Says alot for Nokia’s R&D;. Like M$ and the Obamaish Democrats…billions in cash, yet didn’t think ahead long term for modern day development in software, hardware, and oil drilling. Oh, but the caribou will be ok, so it’s OK.
$30,000 20mpg car driven 18,000 miles a year for 10 years…total cost of ownership…$60,000
“Some are more complex than others.”
MDN, tell us which one is more complex:
Do you mean Windows Mobile is complex and chaotic in its coding structure?
Or, Apple has overcome a complex challenge by delivering an incredibly simple, clean and powerful mobile OS…
Yes Nokia must respond quickly to the Phone. They must buy Symbian 1 1/2 years after the iPhone is released. They must get their crack team of code jockeys working to get Symbian doing things it wasn’t designed to do. They must get something to market by 2011. They might release something by year-end 2012.
They must convince everyone that 5+ years = quickly
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replacement :
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It’s the apps and developers. They see the interest and they’re frightened. They thought the iPhone would be an overnight fad like the Razr. Didn’t think Apple would turn it into a mobile computing platform.
Wow! Just think, Apple bought NEXT for $400 million and now Nokia purchases Symbian for $410 million.
Talk about inflation!
(Am I missing something here?)
A news paper in Mexico reported that nokia does not fear the introduction of the iPhone in Mexico, he says that Nokia is on 40% of people and all that crap. But there is a pool in the same newspaper about what “SmartPhone” people has and more that 40% of the people reported that they have an iPhone even that iPhone has not been officially released there.
Take that Nokia!!!
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/finanzas/65031.html
@ Synthmeiste
$410 Million for the 47.9% that they do not already own.
That’s not inflation that’s smells of desperation and putting too much value of on an old OS.
From ipodobserver (Monday, February 5th, 2007):
Apple’s iPhone will stimulate the cell phone market, according to a Nokia executive commenting on the iPhone for an Associated Press article about the iPhone. Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told analysts that his company will not have to change its business model because of the iPhone, but that the entire market will be stimulated by the device.
“[The iPhone] will stimulate this market, it’s very clear,” he said. “The fact that we will see multipurpose devices from many manufacturers, I think it will be good for the industry. And in that way, I very much welcome (Apple to the market).”
A quick look at the general people’s comments aside from the news media and companies themselves will tell you how popular Symbian is among developers. This must have provided some good laugh today at Apple and Google and may be even at MSFT.
@HMCIV
Do you mean the time he referred to the iPhone as a ‘niche product’ ? April 17 2008
http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/nokia_shares_slammed_in_wake_of_miss_ceo_calls_apple_iphone_niche_product/
Another pertinent comment from him was on Feb 3rd 2007
“I don’t think that what we have seen so far (from Apple) is something that would any way necessitate us changing our thinking when it comes to openness, our software and business approach,”
http://www.intomobile.com/2007/02/03/nokia-ceo-olli-pekka-kallasvuo-talks-about-the-iphone.html
@AlanAudio
That’s the one. I guess the “niche” product Kallasvuo was referring to was cell phones.
Fortunately for Nokia they are looking at the much broader market of Linux Cell Phones.
Um… ohh!
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Lets see now I will buy the rest of this junk OS for hundreds of millions of dollars and then give it away, what a great business model. Looks exactly like to dot bomb model, company sells stock in IPO for a product that is not expected to make money (EVER) for years.
I bet the CEO of Nokia will get a huge bonus for making this deal.
If I told the CEO of the company I work for that I was going to spend the companies money on something to give away, what do you think he would say? How about your fired!!!
Nokia sells 14 cellphones per SECOND, folks, good for 39% global marketshare. If they get momentum with a mobile media distribution system, they could provide serious competition to the iPod/iPhone/iTunes juggernaut. And that’s appears to be exactly what they’re aiming to do:
An Unlikely Promoter Drives Nokia’s Push in Hollywood
Ovi by Nokia — The Door to Nokia’s Internet Services
Symbian’s roots are Psion, a great British company producing excellent kit way before it’s time. They got crushed by Microsoft, their OS was so far superior that MS FUD was miles deep and they couldn’t sell much hardware.
How does that little island keep on producing such great stuff? – ARM processors and Jonathon Ive for a couple (and Jon is not the only Brit USians think of as USian).
“Like M$ and the Obamaish Democrats…billions in cash, yet didn’t think ahead long term for modern day development in software, hardware, and oil drilling. Oh, but the caribou will be ok, so it’s OK.
$30,000 20mpg car driven 18,000 miles a year for 10 years…total cost of ownership…$60,000″
wow, where to begin…..
ah forget it. you have already demonstrated that you are a moron!
Here’s a much more complete view of what Nokia intends to accomplish with Symbian. I would venture to say that this will give Apple, RIM and Microsoft all cause for concern.
Nokia Plans Mobile Software Surge With Open-Source Symbian
Much of the cell phone industry, led by Nokia (NYSE: NOK), sought to wrest control of its destiny from commercial software makers Tuesday with the announcement that it would convert its own Symbian operating system into a free, open source OS backed by a coalition of some of the world’s biggest handset makers and mobile chip producers.
Nokia, already a 48% stakeholder in Symbian Ltd., said it would buy out the company’s remaining shares from its telecom partners for $410 million and place the Symbian OS — the world’s most widely used mobile operating system — into the hands of the open source movement under the royalty-free Eclipse Public License.
To steward the project, Nokia will partner with rival manufacturers Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and LG Electronics under the banner of a newly formed group called the Symbian Foundation. The group also includes AT&T;, NTT DoCoMo, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, Samsung, and ST Microelectronics.
Foundation representatives said in a statement that the group plans to add the Nokia S60, DoCoMo MOAP, and UIQ mobile environments to Symbian to create “one open mobile software platform” that will be available over the next two years.
“We want to make this the most widely used software platform on the planet,” said John Forsyth, Symbian’s VP for strategy, in an interview. Symbian is used in about 66% of all smartphones and 6% of basic cell phones.
[ See the headline link for complete article. ]
sorry but the reason the iPhone is a joy to use is the interface. i have used Linux and BSD for over decade now, and the one thing that the open source guys have *never* gotten right is the UI.
so the fact that Nokia will open source old useless second hand crap in the hopes of competing with the iPhone UI doesn’t really impress me.
i have a ton respect for OSS. used it for years, and boy was i glad to be rid of MS. but when i heard that Apple, who knows something about UI design, was going to UNIX power, i jumped ship asap. that is the value of a good UI and good OS underpinnings.
right now, Nokia has niether, and going open source won’t magically fix that…..
> in response to the rising threat of companies like Apple and Google.
There is no threat from Google yet. We need to see something real first. The threat is obviously from Apple, and if Symbian is not already meeting that threat with half ownership, it is doubtful that buying the other half will make a difference.
“…and will make the software royalty-free…”
What about making it, um, better?
I’ve got plenty of experience with both S60 (Nokia E51) and UIQ (SE P1i). Nearly every time I use those phones I can’t help but get the feeling that the development team spent all of their time answering the question: “How many functions can we build in to this interface?” rather than “How can we make this easy to use?” UI by geeks, for geeks.
Large and profitable segments of the smartphone market have advanced far enough along the development curve that the emphasis should logically shift from simply adding new functions to streamlining functionality. The iPhone has made advanced, useful functions more accessible and that is the direction that Symbian will need to go if they expect to address that threat.