Symbian Foundation to close websites in December

Symbian

The Symbian Foundation is to close its websites on 17 December as it makes the move over to becoming a licensing body.

In doing so, it will be taking the OS source code offline, although it will be made available "in some form," the Symbian Foundation said.

Whatever form it comes in, be it via USB or DVD, developers who want to access the source code will have to put in a request and wait until 31 January 2011 onwards before they will receive anything.

They may also have to pay a charge for media and shipping.

Last month, Symbian said the shift to software licensing would lead to some members of the team losing their jobs, while operations would be reduced.

Nokia today reiterated its backing for the Symbian platform, amidst talk of the operating system losing popularity.

When asked whether the Finnish mobile manufacturer would ever move away from Symbian, Ilari Nurmi, vice president for business smartphones at Nokia, stressed the firm will not look elsewhere for another operating system.

"Symbian is definitely serving us very, very well," Nurmi told IT PRO at a meeting this morning.

"The latest Symbian smartphones that have the new Symbian experience, I think we are very happy with these devices."

As for Meego, Nurmi had little to say on its development at Nokia.

"We currently have no news related to Meego. In Nokia World in September we said we will concentrate on the things that we have going out now," he added.

Whilst Meego seems to be a no-go for now, and the various changes the Finnish firm has seen this year including a new chief executive (CEO) in the form of Stephen Elop, Nurmi still felt excited about Nokia's future.

"I think we are definitely living in exciting times," Nurmi added.

"We are very happy with the new CEO."

Tom Brewster

Tom Brewster is currently an associate editor at Forbes and an award-winning journalist who covers cyber security, surveillance, and privacy. Starting his career at ITPro as a staff writer and working up to a senior staff writer role, Tom has been covering the tech industry for more than ten years and is considered one of the leading journalists in his specialism.

He is a proud alum of the University of Sheffield where he secured an undergraduate degree in English Literature before undertaking a certification from General Assembly in web development.