Nokia Buys Phone-Software Firm Symbian To Challenge Google's Android

Nokia Corp., the world's largest mobile phone maker, announced Tuesday its plans to acquire all the shares of Symbian Limited, which develops an operating system for mobile phones.

The internationally renowned Finnish telecommunications giant Nokia, which currently owns about 48 per cent of the UK-based firm, said it will pay €264 million (US$410 million) for the 52% of privately owned Symbian it doesn't already own.

Nokia said it has made a 3.65 euro-per-share offer to buy out its fellow shareholders in Symbian, including Sony Ericsson, Ericsson, Panasonic, Siemens and Samsung who represent around 52.1% of Symbian's equity.

Sony Ericsson, Ericsson, Panasonic, Siemens have accepted the offer, while Samsung is also expected to hand over its stake.

The acquisition of the mobile phone software firm Symbian would help Finland's Nokia develop its software to compete with Google's planned Android operating system.

Nokia’s takeover of Symbian comes ahead of its plan to establish Symbian Foundation, which is expected to start operating in the first half of 2009. The foundation will bring together Nokia, AT&T, LG, Motorola, NTT Docomo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone to create a single, royalty-free software platform for mobile phones.

"Our vision is to become the most widely used software platform on the planet," CEO of Symbian Nigel Clifford said in a statement.

The aim of the foundation is to unite several different existing operating systems - Symbian OS, S60, UIQ and MOAP. Google’s Android and the Linux-based LiMo are already open source platforms. And, to give the aforesaid open source platforms a tough challenge, the Symbian Foundation will make some parts of the operating system available as open-source code at launch.

“Symbian is already the leading open platform for mobile devices. Through this acquisition and the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, it will undisputedly be the most attractive platform for mobile innovation. This will drive the development of new and compelling, web-enabled applications to delight a new generation of consumers,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia.

“We will drive efficient, open innovation by unifying the platform and simplifying the software supply chain, leveraging our experience from mobile devices,” he added.

The Finnish telecom company said it expects the acquisition of Symbian to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2008.