Nokia confirms lasting Symbian relationship

Nokia has reiterated its commitment to Symbian, saying it will be selling phones based on the platform long after the first Windows Phone 7 devices begin appearing in the shops, according to reports.

The Finnish handset firm announced a partnership with Microsoft in February which was widely seen as the final nail in the coffin for the Symbian platform as well as Nokia's involvement in the Intel-backed MeeGo open source platform.

However, in an open letter to developers seen by Reuters, Nokia's head of developer relations, Purnima Kochikar, said that struggling Symbian, which was only recently passed by Android in the market share stakes, will be around for a while to come.

"We will be selling [Symbian] devices long after Windows Phone devices from Nokia have already started to appear," she reportedly said.

"Over the past weeks we have been evaluating our Symbian roadmap and now feel confident we will have a strong portfolio of new products during our transition period, i.e. 2011 and 2012."

The forthcoming Symbian handsets will also include performance improvements such as faster processing power and graphics speeds, the letter noted.

The comments by Kochikar echo those made to V3.co.uk when we asked Nokia to confirm its position on Symbian last month.

A statement from the firm declared that Nokia "will continue to support great mobile products based on the Symbian platform for years to come".

These will include "completely new smartphone devices and improved hardware performance such as gigahertz-plus processing capabilities and faster graphics speeds", the firm said.

Analysts, however, appear certain that Symbian will be dropped eventually, although at this stage Nokia is doing all it can to deflect any such talk.