Symbian Software
Software development company / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Symbian Ltd. was a software development and licensing consortium company, known for the Symbian operating system (OS), for smartphones and some related devices.[1] Its headquarters were in Southwark, London, England, with other offices opened in Cambridge, Sweden, Silicon Valley, Japan, India, China, South Korea, and Australia.
Company type | Private company limited by shares |
---|---|
Industry | Software, business services |
Predecessor | Psion |
Founded | 1998; 26 years ago (1998) |
Defunct | 2 December 2008; 15 years ago (2008-12-02) |
Fate | Acquired by Nokia |
Successor | Symbian Foundation (2008–2011) |
Headquarters | , England |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Juha Christensen, Colly Myers, David Levin, Nigel Clifford |
Products | Symbian OS |
Number of employees | 1,178 (2007) |
Subsidiaries | UIQ Technology (until 2007) |
It was established on 24 June 1998 as a partnership between Psion, Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and Sony, to exploit the convergence between personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones, and a joint-effort to prevent Microsoft from extending its desktop computer monopoly into the mobile devices market.[2] 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 own already, at a cost of €264 million.[3] On the same day the Symbian Foundation was announced, with the aim to "provide royalty-free software and accelerate innovation",[4] and the pledged contribution of the Symbian OS and user interfaces.
The acquisition of Symbian Ltd. by Nokia was completed on 2 December 2008,[5] at which point all Symbian employees became Nokia employees. Transfer of relevant Symbian Software Ltd. leases, trademarks, and domain names from Nokia to the Symbian Foundation was completed in April 2009.[6] 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.[7]