Samsung said it will discontinue support of Symbian as part of its Mobile Innovator developer support program, becoming the second major handset maker in the past week to publicly shift away from the platform.
In a letter to developers, Samsung said that effective Dec. 31 the company will no longer provide support to Symbian developers. Samsung recently has put its weight behind Google's Android platform, Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system and its own bada effort.
Sony Ericsson confirmed last week it will not produce any new products running Symbian. "We have no plans for the time being to develop any new products to the Symbian Foundation standard or operating system," Sony Ericsson spokesman Aldo Liguori told Bloomberg.
Nokia (NYSE:NOK) now stands as one of the few high-profile supporters of Symbian. Nokia set up the Symbian Foundation in 2008 to share the platform's source code, but that operation pales in comparison with Google's open-source Android effort.
However, Nokia is still beating the drum for Symbian, which is one of the company's two smartphone platforms; Nokia will release a high-end device running on the MeeGo operating system by year-end. Nokia just started shipping its latest flagship Symbian smartphone, the N8, which runs Symbian^3.
For more:
- see this Samsung letter
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