Symbian has switched to Open-source version of Software

Symbian software is used on more than 330 million phones around the world. It powers the most smart phones in the world. It is facing new competition in the smart phone arena from Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android system. Between these Android is freely available for anyone to use. Now, the Symbian Foundation planned to release, a large part of the software for free.

This open-source version of the software is known as Symbian 3, and supersedes Series 60. It has now completed the largest-ever conversion of proprietary software to “open source,” which means the source code, or blueprint for the software, is available to anyone.

Symbian foundation was set up in 2008 after Nokia Corp. Nokia decided to give the software away to make it more popular with other manufacturers, a move not uncommon in the technology world.

Analysts say Symbian, which has more than 10 years of development behind it, is starting to look outdated and has lagged in supporting must-have new features like touch screens. This version of software deletes incorrect reference to Series 40, which is still owned by Nokia.