Nokia Buys Symbian: Developers, Developers, Developers

Now that Nokia has bought Symbian and plans to open source it, they hope to standardize the Symbian platform across all Symbian phones. Many a developer has cried over the need to build many versions of the same Symbian app for various Symbian phone models from multiple manufacturers. Soon, they will cry no more.

Of course, a unified user interface and developer environment on a free OS is the exact selling point of Google Android. Add in the market penetration of Symbian, and you get an awesome combo. Easier development plus wider audience means more apps, which means more useful phones (made cheaper with a free OS), which means more handset sales. Good on Nokia for figuring out how to easily replicate Android’s advantage.

Removing the cost of Symbian licenses, making Symbian apps easier to develop, and uniting Symbian developers’ audience will benefit all Symbian phone manufacturers, including Nokia rivals Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, Simens, LG et al. That’s probably why Ericsson and Siemens sold their Symbian shares to Nokia for a song.

Instead of greedily hoarding its platform, Nokia has opened it reinforce its four-million-strong developer community. Software can be free, while hardware and services cannot; Nokia is eliminating an artificial scarcity to make more money on real scarcities. They have the right focus, a focus borrowed from Google Android and forgotten by Microsoft Ballmer: developers, developers, developers.