Nokia "ownership" put Palm off Symbian support

It may come as little surprise to many industry observers, but Palm Inc CEO Ed Colligan has confirmed in an interview with Computer Business Review that his company has no plans to support the Symbian operating system.

Palm raised eyebrows when it announced that at least one future phone it ships will support Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, rather than the Palm OS operating system from PalmSource, which used to be part of Palm itself. On other phones, Palm will continue to support Palm OS.

But that show of operating system agnosticism is unlikely ever to extend to support for the Symbian operating system, partly because according to Colligan, We could not afford to support three operating systems. But it seems it is not just about cost because Colligan also noted that, Nokia owns Symbian, suggesting that he would not want to support an operating system owned by its close rival in the smartphone space, Nokia.

In fact Symbian is owned by a consortium of vendors, though Nokia owns the largest share, with 47.9%. Ericsson has 15.6%, Sony Ericsson 13.1%, Panasonic 10.5%, and the rest is owned by Siemens and Samsung.

Colligan insisted though that as well as support for Palm OS, Palm could only afford to support one additional operating system, with the choice coming down to Windows Mobile or Symbian. The decision to go with Windows Mobile was made partly because some of its carrier partners were looking for a Palm running Windows Mobile, and partly because some enterprises it wants to sell to have a Microsoft only attitude.

For its part, Symbian recently told Computer Business Review that it is not unduly concerned at Palm's decision to support Windows Mobile on its first 3G-enabled Treo, because its own strategy is increasingly targeted at the emerging mid-market, whereas it sees Windows Mobile playing higher up.

Microsoft is more of a distraction factor, David Wood, Symbian executive VP of research told Computer Business Review. The big story [for Symbian] is not another high-end rival.

Instead, Symbian, whose operating system is shipped on 54 smartphones by more than 200 carriers, said it is competing against incumbent operating systems in mid-market phones. Sony Ericsson, for instance, uses the OSE operating system. The Nokia series 30 and series 40 smartphones run on the proprietary Nokia OS (though higher-end Nokia smartphones do run Symbian). We are making a big, big effort to reach [that] mid-range, Symbian's Wood said.

Currently, Symbian outsells other high-end smartphone operating systems and has just a couple of toes in the mid-market, Wood said. Indeed, Wood said he hopes Microsoft's increasing presence in smartphones will help accelerate the growth of the market as a whole. The bigger the overall market is, the larger the mid-market slice will be, he said.

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