Symbian: The Other Handheld OS

If you're one of our many US-based Techdirt readers, you may not be familiar with the Symbian Smartphone OS, but the European-based Symbian OS is playing an increasing role and finding it's way into 2.68M handsets in the first half of this year. Symbian is a joint venture owned by Psion, L.M. Ericsson, Nokia Corp., Panasonic, Motorola Inc., Samsung and Siemens AG. These global handset brands are threatened by Microsoft, and neutral on PalmSource, so they have created their own OS to power Smartphones where they can assure that the business model maintains the importance of the terminal manufacturer and their brand. Aside from the strategic importance, the Symbian OS is highly functional, and winning customers around the world, and in Europe in particular.