Bad news if you’re a Nokia or Symbian fan. Great news for pretty much every other smartphone user on the planet. It would seem as if the onslaught of iOS, Android, Windows Phone, webOS and Blackberry has been too much for the Symbian Foundation to handle. The recent departure of Sony Erickson and Samsung didn’t help much either.
There was a time when over two-thirds of the worlds phone users sported something with Symbian running on it. As the iPhone has taken off, and major phone vendors have begun embracing Android and Windows Phone 7, there is just no longer a need for the OS.
The Register is reporting that the Nokia backed foundation is laying off its workers:
Hit by a major member defection this month, the Symbian Foundation has asked its new executive director to close operations because it has insufficient funding to continue.
This week, the Foundation had announced the sudden and immediate resignation of executive director Lee Williams for “personal reasons” and his replacement by CFO Tim Holbrow.
But a source close to Symbian has told The Reg that Holbrow has been appointed to wind down operations and that Foundation employees are being offered redundancy packages.
It’s possible that Nokia could hunker down and become the exclusive provider of Symbian phones, as they make up the largest chunk of the current ecosystem. However, it would seem they’d be wise to cut their losses and begin using an alternative.