Symbian rolling out fully open source version of mobile phone OS

February 4, 2010, By Sanjeev Ramachandran in Software

The first fully open source version mobile phone operating system from the Symbian Foundation is ready for roll out. The release of the new version is being seen as a path breaking step toward helping developers to enhance software capabilities and design applications for use on Symbian-based phones. The move also comes as an answer to Google, which has brought forth the Android – another open-source mobile OS.

With the new open source Symbian version arriving, programmers worldwide would be able to download, modify and use the software – all free of cost.

The most commonly used smartphone software has now moved from being a proprietary operating system only available to developers at companies like Nokia into an open-sourced one. Programmers will now access to the software freely. Going by a Gartner report, Symbian will be the top popular mobile OS by 2012, followed by Android which will beat Windows Phone and the iPhone. It is expected that the deployment of the Symbian mobile OS will gain in momentum in the days to come.

(Via BusinessWeek)