Nokia buys Symbian

After a long courtship period of many years Nokia finally tied a knot with Symbian. Symbian's Series 60, UIQ and MOAP platforms will be merged into an open-sourced platform which is being seen as a step to counter attack Google's much-feted Android Open Handset Alliance project.

The companies that use Symbian will no longer be paying a license fee for using the platform. Nokia will contribute Symbian and its own Series 60 (S60) platform to a new non-profit organization called the Symbian Foundation. Sony Ericsson and Motorola will contribute the UIQ platform, and NTT DoCoMo will contribute its MOAP platform. The entire new platform will be made open source over the next two years under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) version 1.0. Other Symbian Foundation members include Texas Instruments, Vodafone, Samsung, LG, and AT&T.