Only one more Symbian model from Nokia, says report

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Only one more Symbian model from Nokia, says report

The legacy OS will be killed off earlier than expected as users defect, though existing customers will get updates

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 7 February, 2012

READ MORE: Nokia | OS | Handset | Symbian

Nokia could abandon Symbian earlier than expected, as sales of its legacy platform go into freefall. According to The Register, the Finnish giant plans to release one last Symbian model, an upgrade for the N8, later this year, though it will continue to upgrade the software for existing users. The challenge will be to ensure that it converts a decent percentage of Symbian defectors to WP7 rather than losing them to Android.

That will rely on the upcoming Tango update to WP7, which is expected to support handset designs for the midmarket, critical territory for Nokia and the main area of smartphone growth. In its current format, WP7 is hard to squeeze into midrange devices, of the kind that a typical Symbian or featurephone user might adopt (although ZTE has made a good stab at it). That leaves the field free for Android.

Nokia had originally hoped to hang onto its Symbian base, especially in emerging economies, until it had pushed WP7 down into the mass market. But in the last quarter of 2011, its results showed a healthy start for its Lumia Windows range, but this was offset by faster than expected decline in low end and midrange models, the latter running Symbian. Nokia insiders admitted that a target announced a year ago, of selling another 150m Symbian models over several years, was no longer considered realistic. And CEO Stephen Elop confirmed that verdict last week, saying: "We now believe that we will sell fewer Symbian devices than we previously anticipated."

ST-Ericsson, a major chip supplier for the Symbian handsets, also hinted at the accelerated death throes, pointing to a "very significant decline" in net sales partly because of the "reduction, in the short term, of new product sales with one of our largest customers."

However, the updated Symbian platform, Belle, will continue to be developed and supported for the legacy base. Belle was released for recent Symbian models this week, promising a new user interface more reminiscent of that for MeeGo, Nokia's now abandoned Linux-based venture with Intel.

The Nokia Conversations blog claims: "Nokia Belle delivers more personalization options than before. You can have up to six homescreens that are easy to personalize, leaving all your favourite applications and services only a few taps away." Other improvements include a notifications system similar to Android's and a better browser. The update is available at once for the Nokia N8, E7, E6, X7, C6-01, C7 and Oro. New Symbian models, notably the Asha, already come preloaded with Belle.