Symbian Foundation Bolsters RanksSymbian Foundation Bolsters Ranks

The Symbian Foundation announced Tuesday it has gained more members in its goal to develop an open operating system for mobile devices.

The foundation said nine new members throughout the mobile ecosystem have joined the initiative. The new members are Acrodea, Brycen, HI Corp., Ixonos, KTF, Opera Software, Sharp, TapRoot Systems, and UIQ.

"Symbian was one of the first companies to support Opera's vision of how the Web one day would be available on any device," Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner said in a statement. "Today, that vision is becoming a reality. We look forward to the opportunity to join the foundation and help drive the ongoing evolution of the leading mobile operating system."

In June, Nokia announced it was going to purchase the remaining shares of Symbian with the goal of creating a free, open source operating system. The Symbian Foundation was created to advance that goal, and it already includes members such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, AT&T, and Samsung.

The open source operating system will combine elements of the Symbian OS with Nokia's S60, DoCoMo MOAP, and UIQ to create the new mobile software platform. The first handsets with this open source code will arrive in 2010, according to Nokia.

"Sharp welcomes plans for the Symbian Foundation," said Yuji Arai, Sharp's group deputy general manager, in a statement. "We are convinced that this mobile platform will accelerate innovation in the mobile industry and increase customers' satisfaction."

Symbian is the most widely used OS on smartphones worldwide, but it's facing increased competition from offerings by Research In Motion, Apple, and Microsoft's Windows Mobile. The move toward an open operating system could help Symbian gain more traction in the market, as well as become a more attractive platform for application developers.