Symbian looks to capture OS market share

Symbian is making a bold play for a larger share of the smartphone OS market this year. Their two-part strategy starts with slashing licensing fees and teaming up with Freescale to create a reference design for future phones. License fees will fall to a minimum amount of $2.50 per phone from the current minimum level of $5 to use the Symbian OS. This move is designed to make the system attractive to feature phones as well as smartphones. The market for feature phones, those with music or video but without everything a smartphone has, is several times bigger than the smartphone market.

Symbian and Freescale are creating a blueprint for a fast 3G phone which will be ready in 2007. This will allow small manufacturers cut the development time for smartphones from 18 months to as little as nine, which will make them more competitive with large makers. This move is a bit perplexing on the surface, since Symbian is a joint venture of several companies, most notably Nokia, the largest manufacturer of phones in the world. It would seem that the child is competing with the parents.