Symbian Foundation Gains Stronger Global Support with Comarch

Comarch has announced its support for the Symbian Foundation plans. The initial board members of the Symbian Foundation have welcomed the latest supporters of the Symbian Foundation initiative. Comarch shares the vision of creating an open and compelling mobile software platform and supports plans for the Symbian Foundation. Comarch will continue to ensure professional development and world class systems and applications for our customers, built on the Symbian Foundation platform.

The initial board members of the Symbian Foundation have welcomed the latest supporters of the Symbian Foundation initiative. The interim Steering Group setting up the foundation has been meeting in Tokyo, Japan, last week.

"Japan, together with many other countries in this region, will be important markets for the foundation platform. Today’s Symbian OS is already used in more than 150 countries in over 50 languages and the foundation’s software will build on that heritage, to be a truly global yet locally relevant open platform. Our plans to make the platform available in open source by June 2010 will further enhance its appeal to developers, solutions providers and network operators in this region and around the world.

We are delighted to have such strong support for the foundation from companies here in Japan, including NTT DOCOMO and Sony Ericsson as initial board members, together with Acrodea, Aplix, Brycen, Fujitsu, Fujisoft, HI Corporation and Sharp previously announced, joined today by K3, Renesas and SoftBank Mobile," said Lee Williams, nominated Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation.

The announcement includes support for the Symbian Foundation plans from 7 more companies; Borqs, Comarch, HiQ, Kanrikougaku Kenkyusho Ltd. (K3), L&T Infotech, Renesas Technology Corp. and SoftBank Mobile Corp. who add their endorsements to the 52 other companies already announced.

"Comarch shares the vision of creating an open and compelling mobile software platform and we are proud to support plans for the Symbian Foundation. For Comarch, as for the foundation, innovation extends beyond R&D into solutions and services that enable a new era of digital life for consumers. Comarch will continue to ensure professional development and world class systems and applications for our customers, built on the Symbian Foundation platform. We believe that the foundation will create a 21st century ecosystem of stakeholders and users, providing increasing business opportunities for all," said Paweł Bieryt, EVP, Telecommunications Business Group, Comarch SA.

 

About the Symbian Foundation

On June 24, 2008, mobile industry leaders announced their intent to create the Symbian Foundation, with membership open to all organizations. At the same time, Nokia announced its offer to acquire Symbian Limited. Following the close of that acquisition, Nokia will contribute Symbian OS and S60 software to the foundation. Sony Ericsson and Motorola will contribute technology from UIQ and DOCOMO and Fujitsu have indicated their willingness to contribute MOAP(S) assets.

The contributed software will be available for all foundation members under a royalty-free license, from the foundation’s first day of operations, expected to be during the first half of 2009, dependent upon the close of the acquisition of Symbian Limited by Nokia, expected in the fourth quarter of 2008. From these contributions, the foundation will then provide a unified platform with a single UI framework. The foundation will make selected components available as open source at launch and then work to establish the most complete mobile software offering available in open source.

The foundation’s platform will build on Symbian OS, today’s leading open mobile software operating system with more than 225 million mobile phones already shipped by multiple vendors across more than 250 major network operators and with tens of thousands of third-party applications already available for these devices.

 

Press contacts:

For Symbian Limited:
Karen Hamblen
Symbian Media Relations
+44 20 7154 1707
karen.hamblen@symbian.com

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Notes for editors:

Further information about the Symbian Foundation is available at www.symbianfoundation.org.

Symbian and all Symbian based trademarks and logos are trademarks of Symbian Software Limited. The operation of the proposed Symbian Foundation remains subject to regulatory approvals.

Until such approvals are obtained, and the Symbian Foundation has become fully operational, Symbian Software Limited retains exclusive responsibility for all licensing and marketing activities related to Symbian OS.