Samsung has licensed Nokia’s Series 60 platform for use in its Symbian smartphone products.
It is the third such agreement Nokia has announced in recent months, extending its Series 60 interface and applications layer to devices from Siemens, Matsushita and its own handsets. Series 60 is a platform for smartphones which permits single-handed operation and comprises a set of PIM, messaging and browsing applications which run on the Symbian OS. The first implementation is in Nokia’s 7650 camera phone, which supports MMS, Java and XHTML. Samsung has also licensed technology from Palm and Microsoft for use in other mobile communications products.
“Series 60 is an ideal software platform for the advanced smartphones. The licensing model with access to the source-code will give us the opportunity to contribute to and influence the platform development. The platform’s flexibility will enable us to maintain in our product portfolio a high competitive edge associated with Samsung brand,” said Mr. ByungDuck Cho, Senior Vice President, Mobile Communications R & D team, Samsung Electronics. Pertti Korhonen, executive vice president, Mobile Software, Nokia, added: “We welcome Samsung to the community of Series 60 licensees and look forward to the innovations, unique mobile phones, and exciting applications Samsung will bring to the market with the Series 60 platform. Samsung will have a significant role to play in growing the smartphone market which utilises open standards and technologies. As the leading telecommunication vendor Nokia’s aim is to increase the compatibility between smart phones, since ultimately that will lead to seamless and easy-to-use mobile services for consumers and corporations to enjoy.”