[MStrawder]

Reported today on TechCrunch, Nokia has reportedly decided to dump it's Symbian OS for Maemo, which it includes in it's internet tablets such as the new RX-51. This news came from "undisclosed Nokia sources" speaking to The Financial Times (FTD) in Germany. Though the Finnish company has developed and supported the Symbian OS for over a decade, one of the sources speaking to FTD said, "Symbian is much too cumbersome to keep up with modern operating systems. We have to react.”

FTD also reported that the Symbian code itself is the reason for it's poor performance in modern mobile devices. The software is based on Psion’s Epoc OS developed well over a decade ago. Symbian's code now consist of 20 million lines, nearly as much as Windows XP. This news also comes on the heels of the announcement today that Nokia and Microsoft will be planning a conference call tomorrow to announce an alliance between the two companies. The total details of this alliance are unknown, but the folks over at Electronista, who reported this today, are speculating that it could be to announce the inclusion of Office apps in Nokia's devices.

These two things together could spell big things for Nokia who has been losing a lot of ground in the smartphone market in the U.S. Though the devices have been and continue to be wildly popular in Europe and Asia, devices such as the iPhone and BlackBerry's have grabbed hold of and maintained a the vast majority of the market share in the U.S.

Full article on Symbian here.

Full article from FTD (translated from German) here.

Full article on Microsoft/Nokia alliance here.

[jblackfish]

Wow! Possibly big things going on with the possibility of sparks in the process. This will be one to follow - I'm very interested in where Nokia goes from here. They've been a great company that's dropped back from the pack recently.

[MStrawder]

The nice thing about Maemo is that it's an open-source OS like Android and we should see a lot of 3rd-party enhancements. It also runs very well on lower hardware requirements, so it should help keep manufacturing costs down.
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[jblackfish]

Maemo sounds like a sensible OS- I'm not familiar with it other than what I hear. I hate to say it but the thought of Windows mobile apps "spreading" to Nokia doesn't give me a "warm-fuzzy" if you know what I mean. I just have a hard time liking any Windows apps (...said typing on a Win XP laptop - )

Maybe I should explain that my P-C days go back to using applications like Word Perfect and Lotus 123, both far superior apps in function and "user-friendliness" IMO to MS Word or Excel. Of course they got "squeezed out" by better marketing, packaging, etc. but they were great products. I also remember the beta video format, that I thought was far superior to the VHS format ...but those days are long gone. I'm just saying the best product doesn't necessarily prevail IMO. (**stepping down from soapbox**)

UPDATE: Just to add to your collection, here's the N Y Times article on the topic.

[vince1]

Will be interesting to see what them come up with. Didnt they just not so long ago buy Symbian and make it open source?

[MStrawder]

Just as an update, Peter Schneider, Nokia's Maemo guy has posted on Twitter, "Since it is a popular subject right now: No, Nokia is not replacing Symbian with Maemo. Symbian and Maemo will continue to coexist."

[Mr_Carter]

The N900 has already the new plataform is I'm not mistaking.. Should be available soon. It is similar to the N97 with a few changes... Sounds interesting.
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