Symbian Software Ltd. |
Type | Private |
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Industry | Business Software & Services |
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Fate | Acquired by Nokia Corporation |
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Founded | 1998 |
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Headquarters | Southwark, London |
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Key people | Colly Myers, David Levin, Nigel Clifford |
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Products | Symbian OS |
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Employees | 1178 (2007) |
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Parent | Nokia |
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Symbian Ltd. was a software development and licensing company, known for the Symbian OS, a smartphone operating system, and other related technologies.[1] Its headquarters were in Southwark, London, England, with additional offices in the United Kingdom, China, India, Japan, Korea, and the United States.
It was established on 24 June 1998 as a partnership between Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, and Psion to exploit the convergence between PDAs and mobile phones. 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 already own, at a cost of €264 million.[2] On the same day the Symbian Foundation was announced, with the aim to "provide royalty-free software and accelerate innovation",[3] and the pledged contribution of the Symbian OS and user interfaces.
The acquisition of Symbian Ltd. by Nokia was completed on 2 December 2008,[4] at which point all Symbian employees became Nokia employees. Transference of relevant Symbian Software Ltd. leases, trademarks and domain names from Nokia to the Symbian Foundation was completed in April 2009.[5]
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.[6]
Symbian OS
Symbian Ltd formerly developed and licensed Symbian OS, an operating system for advanced 2.5G and 3G mobile phones. User interface layers were provided by third parties. These included Series 60, Series 80 and Series 90 by Nokia, UIQ from UIQ Technology and MOAP(S) for NTT DoCoMo.
All three interfaces, as well as the OS, are now owned and maintained by the Symbian Foundation.
Shareholding
Before its outright purchase by Nokia in December 2008, Symbian Ltd. was owned by Nokia (56.3%), Ericsson (15.6%), Sony Ericsson (13.1%), Matsushita (10.5%), and Samsung (4.5%).
The company's founder shareholders were Psion, Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola. Motorola sold its stake in the company to Psion and Nokia in September 2003.[7] Psion's stake was bought by Nokia, Matsushita, Siemens AG and Sony Ericsson in July 2004.[8]
Much of Symbian's initial intellectual property came from the software arm of Psion PLC.
Licensees
Licensees of Symbian's operating system were:
Key people
Symbian Ltd's CEO at the time of acquisition was Nigel Clifford.[9] Previous CEOs included David Levin, who left in 2005 to head United Business Media PLC, and the founding CEO, Colly Myers, who left the company in 2002[10] to found IssueBits, the company behind SMS information service Any Question Answered (AQA).[11]
See also
References
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| Symbian^1 models (S60 5.0) | - 5230
- 5233
- 5250
- 5530 XpressMusic
- 5800 XpressMusic
- C5-03
- C6-00
- N97
- N97 Mini
- X6-00
- i8910 Omnia HD
- Satio
- Vivaz
- Vivaz Pro
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| Symbian^2 models | - Fujitsu: DoCoMo F-06B
- DoCoMo F-07B
- DoCoMo F-08B
- F-10B
- Raku-Raku Phone 7 / Sharp: DoCoMo SH-07B
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| Symbian^3 models (S60 5.2) | - C6-01
- C7-00
- C7 Astound
- E7-00
- N8-00
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| Symbian Anna models (S60 5.2) | - 500
- 702T
- 801T
- E6-00
- Oro
- T7-00
- X7-00
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| Symbian Belle models (S60 5.3) | |
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| Symbian Belle FP1 models (S60 5.4) | |
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| Device manufacturers | |
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| Related | |
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| Divisions, subsidiaries and joint ventures | Current | |
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| Former and defunct | |
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| Acquisitions | |
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| Products, services and technologies | - Internet tablets
- Mobile phones
- HERE
- N-Gage
- Life Tools
- Music
- Ovi3
- Point & Find
- City Lens
- Software products
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| Places and facilities | - Kaapelitehdas
- Nokia Arena
- Nokia House
- Nokia Theatre and Club Nokia
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| People | - Stephen Elop
- Fredrik Idestam
- Kari Kairamo
- Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo
- Leo Mechelin
- Jorma Ollila
- Risto Siilasmaa
- Simo Vuorilehto
- Björn Westerlund
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| Other | - Instituto Nokia de Tecnologia
- Jolla
- Nokian Footwear
- Nokia Game
- Nokia Pure
- Nokia Trends
- Nokia tune
- Python
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| - 1Sold 2Broken up 3Discontinued 4Sold, retaining 10% share
- Category
- Commons
- Wikinews
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