Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson, ST-NXP Wireless, Texas Instruments and Vodafone) today announced the nomination of Lee Williams as the Executive Director for the planned foundation. Lee is currently head of the S60 organization in Nokia’s Devices business.

"We are delighted to have such a strong and experienced leader to head the Symbian Foundation" said Kris Rinne, senior vice president, architecture and planning, AT&T on behalf of the initial board members. "Lee Williams is well known in our industry and has been a driving force in the establishment of the foundation. Following an extensive, independent selection process, we believe that he is the best candidate to lead the foundation. He will now work to ensure we get the most complete and competitive Symbian Foundation platform offering and setup the operations needed to drive the platform to its next phase of evolution as quickly as possible. "

"I feel honored to have been invited to serve in this role", said Lee Williams. "This is a great opportunity to directly help deliver on the promise of the foundation, working with the stakeholders and prospective members who are so committed to make this initiative a success. To me, there can be no more exciting role in the mobile software world than to lead the Symbian Foundation."

52 companies have now announced their support for the planned Symbian Foundation, including 8 device manufacturers, 7 semiconductor companies, 9 mobile network operators, 27 services and software companies and 1 financial services provider. More details are available at www.symbianfoundation.org, where hundreds of other organizations have registered their interest in learning more about the Symbian Foundation, since plans were announced in June 2008.

As previously announced, the plans for the establishment of the Symbian Foundation and royalty-free licensing of foundation software are:

1. The acquisition of Symbian Limited by Nokia, expected to close in Q4, 2008, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
2. Software assets are contributed to the foundation, including Symbian OS™ and S60 by Nokia, UIQ technology by Motorola and Sony Ericsson and MOAP(S) by NTT DOCOMO and Fujitsu.
3. This contributed software will be available under a royalty-free license to foundation members from the first day of Symbian Foundation operations, expected 1H 2009.
4. The Foundation will work to unify the platform, with the first unified foundation release expected in 2009.
5. The foundation will work to make the platform available in open source by June 2010 (two years from the Symbian Foundation announcement)

Lee Williams will remain in his current role as head of the S60 organization in Nokia’s Devices business until January 1, 2009, or until such time as the foundation and its leadership team are in place and operational. The operation of the foundation remains subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

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.

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 200 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 .

The foundation software licensing model and governance has been selected to secure transparency, encourage contribution and maintain platform consistency. The foundation will promote collaboration, contributions and active participation and will operate as a meritocracy. Device manufacturers will be eligible for seats based on number of Symbian Foundation platform-based devices shipped, with the other board members selected by election and contribution.

Only one seat will be available per organization on the board of directors and each of the councils.

Information Source:    Symbian

Image courtesy of conversations.nokia.com