Richard Windsor, a research analyst for technology and communication equipment at Nomura International, questioned whether Nokia's move to open source the Symbian platform a "win" for everyone involved. In the wake of Nokia's acquisition of Symbian Limited [1], the Finnish phone giant announced its plans to open source the venerable Symbian operating system [2]. 

While the move bodes well for the Symbian platform, non-Nokia licensees like Sony Ericsson will have "a massive disadvantage against Nokia," noted Windsor. One of the reasons is that its sheer volume allows Nokia to sell S60-based hardware at a staggering 40 percent lower price than its competitors. This may be the reason Sony Ericsson came up with phones based on Windows Mobile, such as the Xperia X1 Smartphone [3], which was unveiled earlier this year.

To read more on the issue of open sourcing the Symbian platform:
- check out this EETimes.com article [4]

Related Articles:
Nokia to buy all of Symbian [5]
Nokia to open source Symbian OS [6]
Hands on: Sony Ericsson Xperia [7]