back to article Symbian Foundation shuts up (virtual) shop

The slow death of Symbian continues, with the 'Foundation announcing that come 17 December it's pulling the plug on its websites and online presence. Over the weekend the Symbian Foundation, online home of the recently-open-sourced operating system, broke the news and said it's taking the source code offline, to be made …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Marketing (hip/trendy/cool ? HTC?) beats quality product, yet again

    I think my first Nokia was a 6210. A relative still has it.

    My current Nokia is an E65, and in between have been various others.

    My E65 has a few add-ons: TomTom, a movie player, Opera. Even VNC.

    It all fits in a phone that looks and feels like a phone and whose battery lasts for days (as long as I don't enable 3G).

    But other phones with different software are trendier. They may not be as good, but they sell more.

    'Twas ever thus.

    C'mon Orange, get the ZTE Blade available to your contract customers. At least that one doesn't cost much to be trendy.

    1. Kevin Bailey

      I had an E65...

      ...and now have an HTC desire - and it's a world of difference. Finally the smart phone has arrived.

      The latest nice touch - being able to turn the Desire into a WiFi hot-spot with a single press/click.

      The screen on the E65 is simply too small for a smart phone - although I agree that I liked the slidey action. And the (Symbian?) OS was simply too confusing - especially compared to Android.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Branding

    Frankly, is any company with branding like that ever likely to survive? Management OKing that corporate makeover were displaying that they lacked 'the right stuff' in a 10-feet tall neon sign nailed to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

    Similarly, let's see how long it is before the UK ISP Be Unlimited disappears, leaving the O2 name to go it alone. Their site looks like an 11-year-old's first attempt at an eBay scam.

    Symbian's best hope is bringing in a socialite like Paris Hilton to take over the day-to-day running of the company. And even that has doubts hanging over it, albeit lesser ones than the current Nokia yes men.

  3. Mark Jan

    Sigh on and on

    Psion spawned yet deprived Symbian of the oxygen it needed.

    Deprived of oxygen, Nokia slowly killed it by feeding it the wrong formula as well.

    Psion should have been Nokia, Blackberry and Apple combined as it had the attributes of all 3 companies. Sadly this was never going to happen as Psion was a British tech company.

    Maybe its choice of wrong bed fellow in Motorola was the beginning of the end but you can't help but feel that Psion and Symbian should have been so much more. Yeah I know that Symbian is in gazzilions of mobiles but so what. It doesn't matter that your grandma's phone is easy to use, that isn't where the action is or will be.

    Such a shame.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    So...

    Does this mean that the Ovi Store is no more?

    That my N97 will now go the way of my HTC TyTN and there'll be no software written for it anymore, as developers move on to Windows Phone 7, Blackberry OS, Android and iOS?

    It's a shame to see Symbian go. It was a reasonably good OS with multitasking and cut and paste. Up to par with Windows Mobile 6.5 when it passed on, and was even better than iOS, and still is given that Symbian does true multitasking for almost all apps and iOS doesn't even do true multitasking most of the time.

    RIP Symbian, along with Leslie Nielsen, you'll always be remembered.

  5. Steve Litchfield

    Symbian isn't dead...

    Don't be silly, Bill. This all represents just the continuing winding down of the Symbian Foundation. Symbian, the OS is alive and well and now back in Nokia's control away from committees and boards and such-like. Could well be the best thing that's happened to Symbian in a while.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    symbian foundation "branding" anecdote

    as soon-ex-symbianite, I remember the foundation branding announcements and, even more so, the internal practical jokes made about that amongst those of us ending up in Nokia's loving embrace.

    Overwhelmingly popular suggestion for the foundation's mascot was a flying pig with yellow wings & lipstick. Honi soit ...

    (Can we have a gravestone with some yellow on, please ?)

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    @Steve Litchfield(!)

    "Symbian, the OS is alive and well and now back in Nokia's control away from committees and boards and such-like. Could well be the best thing that's happened to Symbian in a while."

    Want to bet on it?

    I'm the AC @ 11:32. Not only do I have a string of Nokia phones as long as my arm (mostly S60 ones) I'm also clued up enough to recognise your name from All About Symbian from when I used to care about these things. But these days I'm not a geek (honest), I just want a phone that works with a few useful extras, not a phone that's geeky or trendy (or unreliable or overpriced).

    I am your target market. But I am due for a new phone soon (so long as it is *better* than my current one).

    Tell readers why they should see a future with Symbian rather than with Android.

    Tell readers why they should see a future with Symbian rather than Android when people such as TomTom long ago abandoned Symbian in favour of Windows Mobile. At least now TT have Android too (neither iPhone nor Windows Mobile are options for me, but TT have those options for others). (That'll be the TomTom that grew out of Psion, just like Symbian did, so if anyone knows who to back, it'll be them, right?)

    If you don't want to state your case here, how about at Your Other Place if you prefer.

    Better be quick though because that ZTE Blade looks real interesting for the money. And there'll be more, even from Nokia, if Meego means anything (But it won't, because it's Intel, and everything Intel touch turns to shot if it isn't x86).

    1. David Beck

      one hand handset?

      Save me chasing through all of the vendors of Android handsets that have keyboards and work with a single (left in my case) hand. Thanks.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I had an E65...

    And I've just ordered, at zero cost as a contract upgrade from Orange, a ZTE Blade.

    Sorry Steve, I did say you had a limited Window of opportunity, and as ZTE Blades are now available as upgrades to Orange contract customers (and I get this upgrade "free"), you and Nokia have missed this particular opportunity for me, and probably for many others.

    Will you still be around next time folks need an upgrade?

    Cheers!

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