Symbian alliance grows rapidly in America

With more American phone makers signing up to join the Symbian family, the smartphone software looks set to make an even bigger move in the mobile phone industry.

 

Last week, more than 500 delegates gathered in San Francisco to strengthen the Symbian Foundation as well as to get access to its software.

 

Symbian (News - Alert) rivals with Apple’s Iphone software and Google’s Android operating system.

 

"We are delighted with the response from the Silicon Valley community, as well as from developers around the world, to the plans for the foundation to build on the leading open mobile platform," said Lee Williams,  executive director of the Symbian Foundation, and a keynote speaker at the Symbian Partner Event.

 

Symbian has already grown strong in U.S. with top companies like AT&T (News - Alert) and Texas Instruments joining as board members. Those who have just added the growing list of Symbian members are AOL, Intrinsyc, Xenient, ARM, Broadcom, EA Mobile, Freescale, Marvell, Red Bend Software, TapRoot Systems, T-Mobile (News - Alert) US and Visa.

 

In June, Nokia formed the Symbian Foundation after purchasing remaining shares it didn't own in Symbian. The foundation's goal is to create an open source operating system as Sony Ericsson (News - Alert) and Motorola contribute technology from UIQ and DOCOMO and Fujitsu contribute MOAP(S) assets.

 

Over the coming days, the foundation hopes to create innovative applications to increase the overall market share of Symbian devices.

 

Nokia (News - Alert) said that the first handset with the new Symbian OS will be released to the market in 2010.

 

Market-research firm Informa predicted recently that the market for smart-phones will grow from $39 billion in 2007 to $95 billion in 2013.

 

Another reason that has made this software so attractive is that Nokia would contribute Symbian's assets to the non-for-profit organisation, the Symbian Foundation, uniting with leading handset makers, network operators and communications chipmakers to create an open-source platform.

 

So, in the end, Symbian Foundation will speed up the delivery of new products to the cell phone software markets. The advantage is, in the end, the Foundation members can avoid having to pay fees to outside software developers.