Symbian will remain open, promises Nokia

Nokia has attempted to soothe the fears of other Symbian shareholders by insisting that it is commited to Symbian as an open operating platform.

The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer - which is expected to acquire Psion's stake in Symbian early next month - has also announced new upgrades to its Series 60 operating platform used on its 7610, 6630 and 6260 smartphones.

At Nokia Connections 2004 in Helsinki the company's chief technology officer, Pertti Korhonen, said: "For Symbian to succeed as an industry platform it is important that it remains open and has a multi-company structure. We have a good participation from other Symbian shareholders."

The move goes some way to calming concerns raised in March by Sony Ericsson's then president, Katsumi Ihara, who said it was important that Symbian should remain open to everybody.

Sony Ericsson owns a 1.5 per cent share in Symbian, with the Ericsson side of the joint venture having an additional 17.5 stake in the firm.

Ihara also said Symbian should remain committed to building Sony Ericsson's UIQ interface.

On this Nokia's Korhonen said: "We are looking to support multiple user interfaces without fragmenting the market."

The move comes as Nokia unveiled the second edition of its Symbian-based Series 60 platform.

The company claims that the upgrade creates the first smartphone platform to include CDMA and dual-mode WCDMA-GSM configurations that support 3G services, including video telephony and advanced streaming and browsing capabilities.

Other new applications include a browser plug-in API, 3D graphics for Java and Symbian applications, IPSec and virtual private network client support and an improved user interface framework with SVG to support high display resolutions.

The Series 60 smartphone platform is also licensed to other mobile device manufacturers, including LG Electronics, Panasonic, Samsung, Sendo and Siemens.

"To date, 10 million smartphones using Series 60 have been shipped. It is overtaking the PDA market in volumes," said Korhonen.