Symbian Software

{{Infobox company

| name = Symbian Software Ltd.

| logo = Symbian logo.svg

| type = Private company limited by shares

| industry = Software, business services

| predecessor = Psion

| founded = {{Start date and age|1998}}

| defunct = {{End date and age|2008|12|02|df=yes}}

| fate = Acquired by Nokia

| successor = Symbian Foundation (2008–2011)

| hq_location_city = Southwark, London

| hq_location_country = England

| area_served = Worldwide

| key_people = Juha Christensen, Colly Myers, David Levin, Nigel Clifford

| products = Symbian OS

| revenue =

| operating_income =

| net_income =

| num_employees = 1,178 (2007)

| parent =

| subsid = UIQ Technology (until 2007)

| footnotes =

| website =

}}

Symbian Ltd. was a software development and licensing consortium company, known for the Symbian operating system (OS), for smartphones and some related devices.{{cite magazine |url=http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=1546771 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071018020156/http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=1546771 |url-status=dead |archive-date=18 October 2007 |title=Symbian Ltd |access-date=26 July 2009 |magazine=BusinessWeek}} Its headquarters were in Southwark, London, England, with other offices opened in Cambridge, Sweden, Silicon Valley, Japan, India, China, South Korea, and Australia.

It was established on 24 June 1998 as a partnership between Psion, Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and Sony, to exploit the convergence between personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones, and a joint-effort to prevent Microsoft from extending its desktop computer monopoly into the mobile devices market.{{cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/24/andrew_on_symbian/ |title=Farewell then, Symbian |website=The Register}} Ten years to the day after it was established, on 24 June 2008, Nokia announced that they intended to acquire the shares that they did not own already, at a cost of €264 million.{{cite web |url=http://www.nokia.com/press/press-releases/showpressrelease?newsid=1230415 |title=Nokia to acquire Symbian Limited to enable evolution of the leading open mobile platform |access-date=26 July 2009 |date=24 June 2008 |publisher=Nokia}} On the same day the Symbian Foundation was announced, with the aim to "provide royalty-free software and accelerate innovation",{{cite web |url=http://www.nokia.com/press/press-releases/showpressrelease?newsid=1230416 |title=Mobile leaders to unify the Symbian software platform and set the future of mobile free |access-date=26 July 2009 |date=24 June 2008 |publisher=Nokia}} and the pledged contribution of the Symbian OS and user interfaces.

The acquisition of Symbian Ltd. by Nokia was completed on 2 December 2008,{{cite web |url=http://company.nokia.com/en/news/press-releases/2008/12/02/nokia-acquires-symbian-limited |title=Nokia acquires Symbian Limited |access-date=10 June 2015 |publisher=Nokia}} at which point all Symbian employees became Nokia employees. Transfer of relevant Symbian Software Ltd. leases, trademarks, and domain names from Nokia to the Symbian Foundation was completed in April 2009.{{cite web |url=http://blog.symbian.org/2009/04/02/can-you-feel-it/ |title=Can you feel it? |access-date=26 July 2009 |date=2 April 2009 |work=Symbian Blog |publisher=Symbian Foundation}} On 18 July 2009, Nokia's Symbian professional services department, which was not transferred to the Symbian Foundation, was sold to the Accenture consulting company.{{cite news |first=Georgina |last=Prodhan |date=17 July 2009 |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSLH7690720090717 |title=Accenture to buy Symbian services unit from Nokia |work=Reuters |access-date=26 July 2009}}

Overview

Symbian Ltd. was the brainchild of Psion's next generation mobile operating system project following the 32-bit version of EPOC. Psion approached the other four companies and decided to work together on a full software suite including kernel, device drivers, and user interface.{{Cite web |url=http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/The_story_behind_Sony_Ericson_and_UIQ_Technology.php |title=The story behind Sony Ericsson and UIQ Technology|date=7 November 2006 }} Much of Symbian's initial intellectual property came from the software arm of Psion.

Symbian Ltd developed and licensed Symbian OS, an operating system for advanced mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).

Symbian Ltd wanted the system to have different user interface layers, unlike Microsoft's offerings. Psion originally created several interfaces or "reference designs", which would later end up as Pearl (smartphone), Quartz (Palm-like PDA), and Crystal (clamshell design PDA). One early design called Emerald also ended up in the market on the Ericsson R380.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

Nokia created the Series 60 (from Pearl), Series 80 and Series 90 platforms (both from Crystal), whilst UIQ Technology, which was a subsidiary of Symbian Ltd. at the time, created UIQ (from Quartz). Another interface was MOAP(S) from NTT Docomo. Despite being partners at Symbian Ltd, the different backers of each interface were effectively competing with each other's software. This became a prominent point in February 2004 when UIQ, which focuses on pen devices, announced its foray in traditional keyboard devices, competing head-on with Nokia's Series 60 offering whilst Nokia was in the process of acquiring Psion's remaining stake in Symbian Ltd. to take overall control of the company.{{Cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/24/ui_wars_tore_symbian_apart/ |title=UI wars 'tore Symbian apart' – Nokia|website=The Register }}

Shareholding

The company's founder shareholders were Psion, Nokia and Ericsson. Motorola joined the Symbian consortium shortly later, gaining the same 23.1% stake as Nokia and Ericsson in October 1998.{{cite book |last1=Wood |first1=David |last2=West |first2=Joel |date=11 June 2013 |title=Evolving an Open Ecosystem: The Rise and Fall of the Symbian Platform |publisher=Emerald Group Publishing |isbn=978-1-78190-826-6}} Matsushita followed in May 1999 paying £22 million for an 8.8% stake.{{Cite web |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/matsushita-joins-psions-alliance-1096038.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/matsushita-joins-psions-alliance-1096038.html |archive-date=26 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Matsushita joins Psion's alliance |website=Independent.co.uk |date=22 October 2011}} This was followed by Siemens taking 5% in April 2002{{Cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/04/23/siemens_joins_symbian_club/ |title=Siemens joins Symbian club|website=The Register }} and Samsung also taking 5% in February 2003.{{Cite web |url=https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240049564/Samsung-buys-5-stake-in-Symbian |title=Samsung buys 5% stake in Symbian}}

Motorola sold its stake in the company to Psion and Nokia in September 2003.{{cite web |last=Kawamoto |first=Dawn |date=23 August 2003 |url=http://news.cnet.com/Motorola-to-sell-off-its-Symbian-stake/2100-1036_3-5070006.html |title=Motorola to sell off its Symbian stake |access-date=26 July 2009 |work=CNet News |publisher=CNet}}

In February 2004, Psion, the originator of Symbian, intended to sell its 31.1% stake in the company to Nokia. This caused unease amongst other shareholders as Nokia would gain majority control of the company, with Sony Ericsson in particular being a vocal critic. The deal finalised with the stake shared between Nokia, Matsushita, Siemens and Sony Ericsson in July 2004, with Nokia holding a 47.9% share.{{Cite web |url=https://www.infoworld.com/article/2666038/networking/psion-s-symbian-sale-to-nokia-hits-inside-resistance.html |title=Psion's Symbian sale to Nokia hits inside resistance |date=5 March 2004}}{{cite news |last=Cripps |first=Tony |date=8 July 2004 |url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Symbian%27s+Autonomy+Assured+as+Owners+Split+Psion+Stake.-a0119040949 |title=Symbian's Autonomy Assured as Owners Split Psion Stake |work=Computergram International |access-date=26 July 2009}}

Decline

The decline of Symbian Ltd. has been tied to Nokia's fate. By 2007, it enjoyed a high level of success with its operating system running one of every two mobile phones bearing the Nokia logo so that it claimed 65 percent of the mobile market.{{Cite news |url=https://www.silicon.co.uk/mobility/smartphones/symbian-mobile-history-227097?inf_by=5b890fa3671db87d0d8b4da2 |title=Tales in Tech History: Symbian |last=Jowitt |first=Tom |date=2018-01-12 |work=Silicon UK |access-date=2018-08-31|language=en-US}} Its Symbian OS continued to dominate the market until Nokia acquired the company in its entirety in 2008, creating it as an independent non-profit organization called Symbian Foundation. Nokia donated the assets of Symbian Ltd. as well as the Nokia's S60 platform to the new entity with the goal of developing an open-source and royalty-free mobile platform.{{Cite book |title=Porting to the Symbian Platform: Open Mobile Development in C/C++ |last=Wilcox |first=Mark |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2009 |isbn=9780470744192 |location=West Sussex, UK |page=x}}

Nokia, however, began to lose its market share with the emergence of Apple's iPhone and Google's Android. To address this, Nokia abandoned the Symbian OS in favor of Windows Phone OS for its mobile devices, shipping its last Symbian handset in 2013.{{Cite news |url=https://www.pcworld.com/article/2042071/the-end-of-symbian-nokia-ships-last-handset-with-the-mobile-os.html |title=The end of Symbian: Nokia ships last handset with the mobile OS |last=Null |first=Christopher |work=PCWorld |access-date=2018-08-31|language=en}} Having lost its biggest supporter and caretaker, Symbian was absorbed by Accenture, which is supposed to maintain it until 2016. The prior Symbian Foundation has transitioned into a licensing entity with no permanent staff, claiming on its website that it is responsible for only specific licensing and legal frameworks put in place during the open sourcing of the platform.{{Cite web |url=http://licensing.symbian.org/ |title=Symbian Foundation |website=licensing.symbian.org |access-date=2018-08-31}}

Licensees

Licensees of Symbian's operating system were:

Arima, BenQ, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sharp, Siemens and Sony Mobile.

Key people

Symbian Ltd's CEO at the time of acquisition was Nigel Clifford.{{cite web |url=http://www.linkedin.com/ppl/webprofile?action=vmi&id=6414133 |title=Nigel Clifford |access-date=26 July 2009 |publisher=LinkedIn}} Prior CEOs included David Levin, who left in 2005 to head United Business Media, and the founding CEO, Colly Myers, who left the company in 2002{{cite news |last=Lettice |first=John |date=15 February 2002 |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/15/symbian_ceo_myers_exits_suddenly/ |title=Symbian CEO Myers exits suddenly |website=The Register |access-date=26 July 2009}} to found IssueBits, the company behind text messaging Short Message Service (SMS) information service Any Question Answered (AQA).{{cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/21/colly_myers_interview/ |title=Symbian founder on mobile past, present and future |access-date=26 July 2009 |last=Orlowski |first=Andrew |date=21 July 2004 |website=The Register}}