Symbian Foundation hands platform's governance to Nokia

Foundation will become a legal entity tasked with licensing issues from April

The Symbian Foundation is to relinquish control over the future direction of the mobile platform to Nokia from April next year, although the platform will remain open source.

Symbian Foundation executive director Tim Holbrow explained during a hastily arranged conference call today that his organisation will continue to exist solely as a legal entity responsible for licensing software and intellectual property such as the Symbian trademark.

"When we started out on the road to the Symbian Foundation it was the correct strategy at the time as we had five OEMs supporting us," he said.

"Over time external market and economic factors have changed, and as a result the governance structure of the Symbian Foundation is no longer appropriate."

The change means that elements of the Foundation such as the User Interface council and the Roadmap council are likely to be wound up.

"It is unlikely that permanent employees will be required after April," said Holbrow.

Holbrow was joined on the call by Jo Harlow, senior vice president of Symbian devices at Nokia, who was keen to point out that the Symbian operating system will continue to be "made available to the entire ecosystem".

However, when asked whether Nokia will now effectively define the future of Symbian she replied: "Roughly, yes."

Symbian has been in trouble in recent months after handset makers Samsung and Sony Ericsson distanced themselves from the platform, and executive director Lee Williams quit his job.