Nokia takes possession of Symbian

BARCLEONA--Nokia said today it has completed its acquisition of all of the remaining shares of Symbian, marking the first step in its plans to turn the company into a nonprofit foundation and its mobile operating system into an open-source, royalty-free platform.

As of closing, Symbian’s 1500 or so employees transferred to Nokia, where most of them will remain developing the code Nokia plans to contribute to the new Symbian Foundation. Nokia hopes to create the foundation--which will primarily administer the Symbian developer network and distribute the software--in April and shortly afterward release its first version of the new open-source Symbian to its licensees. Nokia is also now in the process of winding down Symbian’s existing licensing agreements to prepare for the foundation’s launch.

The new Symbian release won’t merely be a free version of the old code, however. Symbian is working to fully integrate Nokia’s S60 middleware and user interface (which Nokia is contributing to the foundation) with the operating system. The fifth edition will also be the first to fully support touch interface capabilities and a new runtime fully supporting widgets.

Nokia announced its plans to open-source Symbian in June, tacitly acknowledging that the mobile operating system is taking a backseat to applications in the new mobile data ecosystem.