Symbian Foundation continues to draw strong industry support

September 09, 2008 – Plans for the Symbian Foundation and the evolution of Symbian OS™ as the leading, open platform for mobile innovation continue to receive strong support from companies throughout the mobile ecosystem.  Today, Acrodea, Brycen, HI Corporation, Ixonos, KTF, Opera Software, Sharp, TapRoot Systems and UIQ Technology are adding their endorsement for the planned foundation.

Since June 2008, 40 companies have confirmed commitment to the initiative, including the ten initial board members: AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.

"The mobile phone industry is a very dynamic industry that continues to evolve and develop” said Mats Lindoff, Sony Ericsson Chief Technology Officer, on behalf of the initial board members. “We are happy to see that so many developers and partners in the industry have expressed their support for the plans for the Symbian Foundation, as this will help drive the next level of innovation needed to deliver new user experiences on mobile phones."
 
"As a long time member of the Symbian Platinum Partner Program, Acrodea is excited by plans for the Symbian Foundation." said Junya Tsutsumi, President & CEO of Acrodea. "We are convinced that this initiative will be the start of a new era for mobile development.　The Symbian Foundation will allow Acrodea to bring the highest level of service to our customers and end users in a timely manner on a global basis and we will enthusiastically participate in this endeavour.  Acrodea intends to build closer relationships with other foundation members, helping them meet increasing needs for customization of user experience. "

"Brycen welcomes plans for the Symbian Foundation", said Masaru Fujiki, President and CEO of Brycen Co., Ltd.  "With support already announced by many organizations, we believe the foundation will offer mobile users a wider range of cutting edge products at lower cost.  We will support the work of the Symbian Foundation with versions of our embedded RDBMS products operating on the unified Foundation platform. Combining our technology with the open platform will allow us to offer more efficient global application development and innovative services with high added value, which we believe will enable device manufacturers and service providers to create more attractive products."

“HI CORPORATION sincerely welcomes plans to establish the Symbian Foundation, which will unify the platform and enable leading-edge development for the mobile industry", said Kazuo Kawabate, President & CEO of HI CORPORATION.  "We will optimize our “MascotCapsule” series 3D rendering engine for the Symbian Foundation platform. This will allow developers to focus on differentiation through enriched content and user experience.  With the establishment of the Foundation, we expect to see innovative 3D applications across multiple devices, such as 3D Concierge which will bring brand-new experiences to users.”

"Ixonos welcomes plans for the Symbian Foundation and is committed to becoming a member", said Kari Liuska, Vice President, Business Operations at Ixonos Plc.  "With strong mobile expertise and business understanding, Ixonos shares the vision that the foundation's open software platform will be crucial for future success.  Hundreds of Ixonos people are developing new features and platform components for mobile devices every day, as part of the current ecosystem. We believe that this open and complete software platform will create new business opportunities and expand the customer base.  The Symbian Foundation will enable a new community to build compelling, device independent software and services to transform the lives of users".

“KTF welcomes the Symbian Foundation initiative,” said Tae-Sook Ha, Vice President, Head of Terminal Laboratory in R&D Group, “As a leading wireless communications company in Korea, KTF is working hard to enhance the quality experiences for its customers. We believe that innovation around the Symbian Foundation platform will accelerate this effort with a wide range of open opportunities. We support the plans for the Symbian Foundation and intend to contribute to its work to deliver devices and services which exceed consumers’ expectations.”

"Symbian Limited was one of the first companies to to support Opera's vision of how the Web one day would be available on any device. Today, that vision is becoming reality." said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. "As the market leader in standards-driven, cross-platform Web browsing innovation, we expect to offer our expertise in developing compelling and captivating Web browsing experiences. We look forward to the opportunity to join the foundation and help drive the ongoing evolution of the leading mobile operating system."

“Sharp welcomes plans for the Symbian Foundation”, said Yuji Arai, Group Deputy General Manager, Communication Systems Group. “We believe its activities will establish a leading open platform for mobile.  Participating in the work of the Symbian Foundation and adopting the platform will enable us to concentrate resources to deliver more appealing devices more quickly to a worldwide market.  We are convinced that this mobile platform will accelerate innovation in the mobile industry and increase customer satisfaction.”

"We're excited about the plans for the Symbian Foundation and believe it will increase the proliferation of innovative products and services to mobile consumers," says Bob Bicksler, CEO of TapRoot Systems. "Our talented and deeply experienced engineering team has worked in this space for quite some time and we look forward to continuing our work within the Symbian Foundation ecosystem.  We expect our handset and semiconductor customers will accelerate the introduction of new smartphones through the open Symbian Foundation platform."

“A common platform for user experience, applications and services, with broad industry governance of its development, will provide opportunities to innovate and differentiate and be an excellent step in the evolution of mobile phones” says Johan Sandberg, CEO at UIQ Technology.” We will be happy to contribute to the work of the foundation, based on our extensive Symbian OS experience, understanding of touch technologies and our unique abilities to differentiate and innovate to achieve world class user experience."

Since plans for the Symbian Foundation were announced, hundreds of organizations have registered their interest in joining the foundation 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, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
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 work to make the platform available in open source by June 2010 (two years from the Symbian Foundation announcement)

Note to Editors:

Further information about the Symbian Foundation is available at www.symbianfoundation.org.

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.

About the Symbian Foundation

On June 24, 2008, mobile industry leaders announced their intent to create the Symbian Foundation, with membership open to all organizations.  At the same time, Nokia announced its offer to acquire Symbian Limited.  Following the close of that acquisition, Nokia will contribute Symbian OS and S60 software to the Foundation. Sony Ericsson and Motorola will contribute technology from UIQ and DOCOMO and Fujitsu have indicated their willingness to contribute MOAP(S) assets.  

The contributed software will be available for all foundation members under a royalty-free license, from the foundation’s first day of operations, expected to be during the first half of 2009, dependent upon the close of the acquisition of Symbian Limited by Nokia, expected in the fourth quarter of 2008.  From these contributions, the foundation will then provide a unified platform with a single UI framework.  The foundation will make selected components available as open source at launch and then work to establish the most complete mobile software offering available in open source.

The foundation’s platform will build on Symbian OS, today’s leading open mobile software operating system with more than 200 million mobile phones already shipped by multiple vendors across more than 250 major network operators and with tens of thousands of third-party applications already available for these devices

The foundation software licensing model and governance has been selected to secure transparency, encourage contribution and maintain platform consistency. The foundation will promote collaboration, contributions and active participation and will operate as a meritocracy. Device manufacturers will be eligible for seats based on number of Symbian Foundation platform-based devices shipped, with the other board members selected by election and contribution. Only one seat will be available per organization on the board of directors and each of the councils.  An independent committee will oversee the election process for the board of directors and for the councils.

Press contacts

On behalf of the initial Symbian Foundation board members

Merran Wrigley
Sony Ericsson
+44 20 8762 5862
press.global@sonyericsson.com

Karen Hamblen
Symbian Media Relations
+44 20 7154 1707
press@symbian.com

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