Symbian vs. Android OS: The open source battle
Back in 2008, the Symbian Foundation announced they would make the Symbian operating system open source, and now they have done so and switched to an open source policy which is free to use and will enable mobile phone makers to build their own custom versions of the operating system.
Symbian is probably the most common of operating system being found on numerous Nokia mobile phones although more recently Symbian has fallen behind the iPhone OS and the Android OS according to an article over on know your mobile.
No doubt this move will accelerate the development of Symbian now that it is open source but will it be able to gain ground on the Android OS which is also open source and being picked up by numerous phone manufacturers?
Apparently Nokia has reaffirmed their support for Symbian and they would continue using the OS in future mid-range handsets. However with the popularity of Android at the moment, Symbian definitely has a battle on its hands in the open source world.
What do you think, will Symbian now that it is free and open source become as popular as Android?
Comments
2 thoughts on “Symbian vs. Android OS: The open source battle”
It is a impossible task for Nokia against the Internet Gaint Google. Nokia need to pump in millions of dollars for advertisements and development purpose and also have to tie up with biggest players like Microsoft.
Going open source might get the OS more functional and easy but, as Sheju said in the comment before, Nokia needs to do more advertising for their cell phones, since popularity is not a synonymous for eficiency and a good OS can be beaten for an inferior one only because of marketing.