Nokia's CEO: We'll Stick To Symbian Through 2016
Symbian's dead. Long live Symbian? It seems to be the case these days, as Nokia's long-lived operating system may not be completely paralyzed just yet. In a very interesting twist and turn of events, newly instated CEO Stephen Elop has come out and proclaimed that Nokia will continue to support Symbian through 2016.
When the company first announced that they would be selecting Windows Phone 7 as their go-to mobile OS, many assumed that this meant the end of the line for Symbian. Indeed, hordes of Symbian software engineers were fired in the aftermath, but it seems as if the system may live on in some way.
Of course, it's very likely that Symbian's roadmap extended to 2016 long before the decision was made to select WP7 for future smartphones. And it may end up being more costly to kill that roadmap than to see it through. Furthermore, Symbian is likely to power Nokia's lower-end sets for the foreseeable future, while WP7 takes hold on the higher-end smartphones.
We suspect that the era of Symbian-based smartphones is pretty much over, but believe it or not, the cellphone universe is made up of more than just top-tier smartphones, particularly for a global company like Nokia that serves both developed and developing nations.
When the company first announced that they would be selecting Windows Phone 7 as their go-to mobile OS, many assumed that this meant the end of the line for Symbian. Indeed, hordes of Symbian software engineers were fired in the aftermath, but it seems as if the system may live on in some way.
Of course, it's very likely that Symbian's roadmap extended to 2016 long before the decision was made to select WP7 for future smartphones. And it may end up being more costly to kill that roadmap than to see it through. Furthermore, Symbian is likely to power Nokia's lower-end sets for the foreseeable future, while WP7 takes hold on the higher-end smartphones.
We suspect that the era of Symbian-based smartphones is pretty much over, but believe it or not, the cellphone universe is made up of more than just top-tier smartphones, particularly for a global company like Nokia that serves both developed and developing nations.
