Sony Ericsson Dumps ‘Failed’ Symbian OS

Symbian has suffered another setback after Sony Ericsson confirmed that it had no plans for new Symbian products, while a Gartner analyst labeled the open source mobile operating system as a failed experiment.

In an emailed statement to eWEEK Europe UK, Sony Ericsson said it was currently not planning any new handsets based on the Symbian operating system.

“Sony Ericsson has a multi-platform strategy and an open approach that gives consumers maximum choice,” said the company. “ We’re still a member of the Symbian Foundation and follow the development on the platform, but we have no plans for the time being regarding new products on Symbian.”

Symbian Setbacks

This development is the latest in a number of setbacks for the open source operating system. Its principle backer, Nokia, has previously publicly stated that it was going to drop Symbian^3 OS from its flagship N range handsets, but later seemed to backtrack on this. Instead Nokia continues to work on the open-source MeeGo operating system in conjunction with chip giant Intel, although it has yet to appear on any Nokia handsets.

Instead it seems that Sony Ericsson will focus on the likes on Android and possibly Windows Phone 7.

And now an analyst at Gartner has waded into the attack on Symbian. In his latest blog, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, Nick Jones, said that the “Symbian open source experiment has failed.”

Failed Experiment

“The brave Symbian open source experiment has failed. The only two top-tier device manufacturers on the Symbian board other than Nokia have deserted it,” he wrote, “whilst Samsung is headed down the Android and Bada road.”

“There are precious few device manufacturers remaining as foundation members, e.g. ZTE, Sharp and Compal, none of whom are exactly trend-setting industry leaders,” said Jones.

It should be pointed out that Nick Jones has ‘previous form’ of bashing the open source operating system, as in July he said that he felt that the Symbian foundation was just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and ignoring the Android iceberg ahead.

Jones was critical of Symbian’s user interface, and this time he speculated as to the state of the Symbian Foundation’s finances.

“I don’t have an inside view into the Symbian Foundation’s finances, but I’d guess that money contributed by board and foundation members is going to shrink because more will depart,” wrote Jones. “This will further reduce the Foundation’s ability to work on Symbian, and shifts even more of the burden back to Nokia.”

Not Dead, Just Sick

“One of the items on Steve Elop’s strategic review agenda is sure to be the future of Symbian,” wrote Jones. “So if you were Steve Elop would you (a) abandon Symbian, (b) absorb it back into Nokia (on the basis that the vast majority of the development is done by Nokia) or (c) do something else?”

To be fair Jones feels that it is too early to abandon Symbian. He states that it is sick but is far from dead, as it outships “other mobile OSs by a huge margin.” Earlier this month Gartner highlighted the huge impact of Android when it predicted it will become the second placed mobile operating system in the world, behind Symbian.

Jones wrote that “the important Symbian development back in house which would eliminate time-wasting Foundation activities like release councils, architecture councils, user interface councils,” he wrote.

“What Symbian needs is agility and vision, not committees, and if Symbian is fixable it will be fixed a lot faster under a single leader. And great user interfaces aren’t developed by committees,” he wrote.

“In my view we need to separate Symbian’s problems from the Symbian Foundation’s problems. Symbian can be fixed – if Nokia acts very rapidly. Symbian 4 needs to be nothing less than outstanding, if it’s not then Nokia may have to face a difficult decision about whether to abandon Symbian entirely and rebuild Ovi in a new form.”

The Symbian Foundation was unable to provide a response to eWEEK Europe UK at the time of writing.

Watch this video for eWEEK Europe’s hands-on look at Symbian^3: