It seems that our days of quietly encouraging Nokia’s Symbian OS while sneaking an insult or two through the back door might finally have been given a used-by date. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has delivered an ominous statement regarding the future of Symbian.
“Even as we go through a transition to our primary smartphone platform, Windows Phone, you will see that continued investment and I know there have been questions about how long does that continue and we've now been very clear about that - that software updates to Symbian devices are expected until at least 2016. So there's a long history still to be paved for Symbian in the future.”
- Stephen Elop via AllAboutSymbian
The move is really no surprise, coming on the back of Nokia and Microsoft’s new Windows Phone agreement. Elop has already announced that Nokia would switch to Windows Phone as its primary operating system (OS) in the near future (the first phone is expected not too long from now). What is surprising is the time-frame given.
2016 – 5 years more of Symbian. While it’s perfectly understandable for Nokia to continue Symbian support for 2 years after their last Symbian handset is released so as to not deal any injustice to their customers on 24 month plans, does Nokia really plan on churning out Symbian devices for another 3 years and then support them with updates for a further 2?
Understandably,Nokia needs to keep their low-end phone market alive, something that could be difficult for the time-being with Windows Phone. But 5 more years of Symbian support does sound like Nokia is still having trouble letting go of the past.
What do you think? Do you think find Nokia finally giving Symbian the boot to be a relief? Or would you rather they keep their range of low-end phones running Symbian while embracing Windows Phone for their high-end devices?
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