Symbian Mobile OS Goes Open SourceSymbian Mobile OS Goes Open Source

iWho? Though it's not common in the U.S., where Apple's iPhone rules, the Symbian mobile operating system is the world's most widely used smartphone platform. On Thursday, the Nokia-backed organization that controls the code took a step to further increase its popularity.

The Symbian Foundation said its Symbian OS is now fully open source and open to contributions from developers around the world.

"The development community is now empowered to shape the future of the mobile industry, and rapid innovation on a global scale will be the result," said Symbian Foundation director Lee Williams, in a statement.

As open source software, Symbian can now be used or modified by developers "for any purpose," the Foundation said, "whether that be for a mobile device or for something else entirely."

Symbian Foundation officials are hoping the move will drive innovation on the Symbian OS, which is used by Nokia, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Motorola, and numerous other handset makers to power their phones.

"With this achievement, the world's most popular smartphone platform is available in its entirety for developers around the world to innovate on and contribute to, enabling new opportunities for engagement and monetization," said Peter Ropke, VP for devices R&D at Nokia, in a statement.

Nokia bought out Symbian for about $410 million in 2008 with an eye to bringing the OS into the open source community. Symbian gives phone manufacturers an alternative to commercial mobile operating systems such as Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

Analysts say Symbian's open source status will only increase its ubiquity.

"It's increasingly important for smartphone platforms to offer developers something unique," said IDC's John Delaney. "The placing into open source of the world's most widely used smartphone platform emphatically fits that bill," said Delaney.

Symbian held about 47% of the worldwide smartphone OS market last year. Research in Motion's Blackberry was second, with a 20% stake, and Windows Mobile third with 12.4% of the market, according to Gartner.

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