Well, this certainly isn't particularly surprising. The rising popularity of Android leaves more victims in its wake than just Windows Mobile. Sony Ericsson, one of the major manufacturers of Symbian phones (other than Nokia) has just announced it will pretty much abandon the platform to focus entirely on Android - leaving Nokia as the sole person cheering for team Symbian.
The statements were made to Businessweek, which sought to confirm remarks made a few months ago by Sony Ericsson's chief creation officer Rikko Sakaguchi. Back in July, he said that Sony Ericsson "[has] made a significant shift to support Android". Sony Ericsson spokesperson Aldo Liguori has now taken this a step further.
"We have no plans for the time being to develop any new products to the Symbian Foundation standard or operating system," Liguori told Businessweek. This means that the Vivaz line of mobile phones from Sony Ericsson, introduced in March of this year, will be the last Symbian phone from the company for the foreseeable future.
Symbian is still the world's most popular smartphone operating system, but this is mainly due to Nokia's ability to make great hardware at affordable prices. Other mobile phone manufacturers already ditched Symbian, such as Motorla and Samsung, both of which focus on Android as well. Samsung also does its own operating system called Bada, which, after having used my brother's Samsung Wave, I can say is a very positive surprise - Bada was pretty damn good actually.
With the recent personnel switches over at Nokia, the future of Symbian is very, very uncertain. Nokia seems to be stuck between MeeGo and Symbian, not really knowing which to put its weight behind. If it is going to be MeeGo, Symbian's days as the number one smartphone operating system are numbered.
Source: OSnews
