AT&T Mobility is considering moving toward standardizing the operating system on all of its branded smartphones, and may be settling on Symbian as the chosen platform.
As part of a "dramatic consolidation" of its mobile platforms, the carrier expects to, over the next few years, standardize the OS on its smartphones, which will make up the majority of its portfolio by 2014, said Roger Smith, director of next generation services for AT&T.
Smith, speaking at the Symbian Partner Event in San Francisco, said he thinks Symbian is "a very credible and likely candidate" to become the carrier's platform of choice.
Smith reiterated that the change is related to completely AT&T-branded smartphones, and not third-party products like Apple's iPhone 3G that use AT&T's network. Smith said he worried about how platform fragmentation going forward would affect AT&T's ability to manage its portfolio. "Whose support nightmare is that?" he asked. "It's ours."
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