Symbian: Moving to a Netbook Near You.

We reported last October that the Symbian Foundation, makers of the OS behind Nokia's smartphones, had just opened up their license in order to entice other developers. Now we have information that the Symbian Foundation hopes to expand their operating system to the world of netbooks and other, more varied consumer electronics.

If they manage to make the jump, Symbian could soon be poised to go head-to-head against Android in the global arena. Of course, there are some problems they'll have to overcome before they're ready to take on the little green robot.

According to BusinessWeek, Symbian has lost 15% of its market share in the last year. The ridiculous success of the iPhone in the popular market, and the domination of Android in the niche market, have caused problems for Nokia's newly-acquired OS. Apparently the Foundation thinks the solution to this issue is to expand their reach into other markets; a Symbian strategic developer has openly stated their interest in developing for Netbooks, as well as other media devices.

If will be interesting to see if Symbian will be able to compete with Android outside of the smartphone market. The opening of their development rights was certainly inspired by open-source Android's success in a growing variety of devices. If Symbian can deliver the fast, resource-light OS they are promising, we could see some shake-ups come to the world of netbooks.

 

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