Nokia, Psion, and Motorola announced the initiation of a transfer of Motorola-owned shares of Symbian Ltd. from Motorola's U.K. subsidiary, Motorola Ltd., to Nokia and Psion plc. Symbian Ltd. develops and licenses the Symbian operating system, which is currently the most popular embedded OS in mobile handsets. The proposed transfer will not affect Motorola's existing licensing arrangement with Symbian, the companies said.

Motorola, the #2 worlwide manufacturer of mobile handsets, announced plans earlier this year to produce high-end mobile handsets based on embedded Linux and Java software, and the company is also rumored to be developing devices incorporating Microsoft's Smartphone software platform.

“As a Symbian licensee, Motorola will continue to support the Symbian OS for specific customer and business needs, such as in our 3G devices. However, our primary software focus for the mass market will stay centered on Java, which is also supported by Symbian. We believe Java is what ultimately provides our customers worldwide with the most optimized and differentiated mobile experiences,” said Scott Durchslag, corporate vice president of Motorola's Personal Communications Sector.

“The investment shows Nokia's continued support to Symbian as a strong independent software licensing company and to its stable development as smart phones move towards the volume market,” commented Pertti Korhonen, executive vice president, Nokia Mobile Software. “Symbian has proven that it is fully able to meet the different needs of its licensees by providing the most optimized operating system for feature rich mobile devices.”

For further perspective, refer to this CNET news item.

 
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