Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT Docomo are all buddying up to create the Symbian Foundation. They’ll be joined by AT&T, LG, Samsung, ST, Texas Instruments and Vodafone to push Symbian as an open source mobile OS available to all companies.

In order to get the ball rolling, Nokia plans to acquire the rest of Symbian and then contribute the OS and S60 UI to the Symbian Foundation. Motorola and Sony Ericsson are going to throw their UIQ interface into the pot and Docomo is open to contributing its own MOAP(S) Symbian system as well.

Pulling together all the bits and pieces, the Foundation will be able to offer a full software platform from launch and it’ll be available on a royalty free basis to members. Membership is open to all companies and comes in at only $1,500 a year.

The Foundation plans to release selected components under open source at launch and will then work towards creating the most complete open source mobile software offering over the next two years.

With all companies involved pulling in the same direction, this can only be a good thing for Symbian and we can’t wait to see what comes out of the new Foundation once it gets going.

Related news

Nokia bringing Symbian in house

Video: S60 Touch UI in action

Nokia is really spoiling us with the S60 Ambassador programme

http://noknok.tv/news/symbian-foundation-brings-together-the-best-of-the-best/