Nokia completes acquisition of Symbian

Nokia has completed the acquisition of the world's biggest smartphone operating system company, according to Symbian Limited, the software company that develops and licenses the Symbian OS. Yes, that means Nokia now owns more than 99.9 percent of the above-mentioned company, having purchased the requisite shares from shareholders such as Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola, among other former shareholders. As part of the changes, all Symbian employees are also planned to become Nokia employees as of February 1, 2009.

With the acquisition in place, the establishment of the announced Symbian Foundation looks set for smooth sailing. This also means that the first handsets based on the open-sourced Symbian operating system appear to be on track for the slated releases in 2010, as announced previously. For those new to the scene, the Symbian Foundation will consists of companies such as AT&T, Texas Instruments, Motorola and others, and is formed for joint work to create a royalty-free operating system.

With the fast moving mobile and smartphone landscape, it's still up in the air whether or not this deal can stunt the growth of other mobile platforms, notably that of Apple's the iPhone, and Google's own open-sourced Android platform.

To read more about this story:
- check out this article from CNET News
- check out this article from Unwired View