UIQ files for bankruptcy

UIQ Technology, which makes software based on the Symbian operating system, has filed for bankruptcy in a Swedish court. The company was originally part of Symbian and is now jointly owned by Motorola and Sony Ericsson. Its future has looked very uncertain since Nokia acquired Symbian and founded the non-profit Symbian Foundation last year. [Source: Telecoms.com]

Skyfire mobile browser hits UK

The free Skyfire mobile browser, which describes itself as "the only mobile browser that delivers both the speed and media-rich experience similar to the PC browser", is now available to UK customers. The current (beta) version runs on most Windows Mobile and Symbian devices. [Press blog]

Motorola ditching Symbian and Linux OS phones

Motorola is going to concentrate on selling phones that use Google's Android operating system, Microsoft Windows Mobile and its own system in a bit to cut costs. Company co-CEO Sanjay Jha said Motorola would be dropping support for Symbian UIQ and the Java-Linux platform. It's also no longer planning to sell its mobile handset business in Q3 2009 but says it'll take longer. As part of the company's reorganisation, two thousand jobs are being cut from its mobile business, with three thousand - 4.5% of its global workforce - going overall. [Sources: WashingtonPost.com; Press release]

Symbian reports a slowdown

Mobile phone operating company Symbian says its growth has been affected by a reduction in smartphone demand. Second-quarter shipments were up by only 5%, compared with a 17% increase in the previous quarter and more than 50% annual growth in 2007. Quarterly turnover fell 14%. 19.6 million handsets with the Symbian OS were shipped worldwide in Q2 2008, bringing the theoretical total number of Symbian handsets to 225.9 million. The company is currently in the process of being taken over by Nokia. [Sources: Press release; Guardian.co.uk]

Nokia buys Symbian

It seems like only a few days ago that we were talking about Nokia's ongoing series of acquisitions. Here's another: they're buying mobile phone operating system company Symbian. Nokia already owns 48% and is planning to spend around 264 million Euro on the rest. Sony Ericsson, Ericsson, Panasonic and Siemens have already said they'll sell, while Samsung is expected to agree soon. Nokia also says it'll create the Symbian Foundation to offer open-source Symbian software in partnership with AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. [Press release]

Symbian OS on over 200 million devices

Symbian, which produces mobile phone operating systems, says its OS has now been installed on over 200 million mobile phones. 18.5 million Symbian-equipped devices were shipped worldwide in Q1 2008 - up 16.5% year-on-year - with Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG announcing new Symbian-equpped handsets this year. [Press release]

Microsoft and Nokia working together

Nokia says it plans to bring the Microsoft Silverlight enhanced browsing service to its Symbian-powered S60 menu system, as well as Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets. Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-platform browser plug-in that allows a variety of multimedia features to run within a standard web browser. [S60.com press release]

Turn your Nokia smartphone into a WiFi hotspot

Here's a clever idea. Finish company Joikusoft has created JoikuSpot, free mobile software that turns a Symbian S60 smartphone (such as a Nokia Nseries device) into a WiFi hotspot. Quite simply, the phone will share its 3G network connection using its WLAN connection. [PDF press release]

Smart phone shipments up 53% last year

New market data from analyst firm Canalys shows that 118 million 'smart phones' were shipped worldwide in 2007, up 53% on 2006. 67% of all devices used the Symbian operating system, followed by Microsoft with 13% and RIM (BlackBerry) on 10%. Nokia and RIM retained their number one (52.9%) and number two (11.4%) manufacturer positions from 2006, with Apple moving in to third place - despite its limited geographic coverage - with a 6.5% market share, putting it fractionally ahead of Motorola. [Press release]