Nokia's new
commitment to Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system doesn't mean it has
given up on Symbian all together. The phone maker, which had promised to
continue supporting Symbian, has sent out invitations to the media for an April
12 event where attendees will "Discover what's new with Symbian
smartphones."
According to
the Boy Genius Report,
the event will take place in London—a far larger market for the fading OS than
the United States has ever been.
During the
fourth quarter of 2010, Symbian lost its longtime role as the leading global
mobile OS to Google's Android. While Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericcson, Sharp
and Fujitsu jumped ship from Symbian—opting instead for Google’s Android—Nokia
held fast, reaffirming its commitment to the OS and pledging to continue to
invest resources in the development of the OS, even as the Symbian Foundation lessened its involvement.
However,
former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop, upon taking on the role of Nokia CEO
in September 2010, acknowledged that the company was in need of a "radical change." He went
on to explain this in a Feb. 8 memo to employees, describing the company as
needing to do something "previously unthinkable" or else perish.
That
previously unthinkable move turned out to be a new commitment to Microsoft,
announced Feb. 11 at an event in London. During a question-and-answer portion
of the event, Elop explained that while Windows Phone would be Nokia's primary
focus, Nokia has "over 200 million Symbian users out there," and that
the company expects to ship 150 million more Symbian handsets as it transitions
to Windows Phone over the following months and years.
It's unclear
whether Nokia will show off new Symbian-running smartphones at the event—according
to TechTree,
Nokia has promised a dual-core 1GHz processor phone with a "true zoom
camera"—or just updates to the OS, as it has also promised. According to
the site, Gunther Kottzieper, a senior manager at Nokia China, told attendees
at the International Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing "more than 50
enhancement would be added in four to five Symbian upgrades."
In the
meantime, fans of Symbian and Nokia might want to consider the Nokia E7, which after a considerable delay is finally shipping.
The GSM-running, 3G-supporting smartphone is unlocked—meaning there's no
two-year contract attached—and priced at $679 on the Nokia site and $649 on
Amazon. It features a 4-inch display, slide-out QWERTY keypad, the Symbian 3
OS, an 8-megapixel camera with 720p video capture, WiFi and Bluetooth
connectivity, 16GB of internal memory, HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia
Interface) output and support for corporate email accounts. Touted as "the
ultimate business smartphone," it comes preloaded with Quickoffice, an
Adobe PDF reader, F-Secure Anti-theft security software and Ovi Maps with free
GPS navigation.
Whatever Nokia
announces April 12, it will have to vie for attention with a goodie or two from
HTC—also scheduled to make an announcement in London that day—as well as news
from Microsoft about Windows Phone 7, scheduled to come from its MIX11 event
in Las Vegas.
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