Nokia gobbles up Symbian, creates open-source alliance

Google's got problems. Its open-source Android platform is facing delays, the iPhone mobile OS is gaining momentum, and now comes news that Nokia, the 800-pound gorilla of cell phones, will acquire the Symbian OS and make elements of it open-source under a 10-member alliance. Sound familiar?

As PC World reports, Nokia already owned part of Symbian, the company that makes the smartphone OS powering such handsets as the N95 and N82. According to PC World, Nokia will cough up more than $400 million for the rest of Symbian.

Meanwhile, the new Symbian Alliance will comprise Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T, LG, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, and Vodaphone.

Each member of the alliance will get royalty-free access to Symbian (along with UIQ, a smartphone OS owned by Motorola and Sony Ericsson, and DoCoMo's MOAP) and will make "selected components" of the new, combined OS available as open source at launch, with additional components becoming available over the next two years, Nokia said.

It's worth noting that Moto, LG, Samsung, TI, and DoCoMo are also members of Google's Android alliance, while AT&T, which flirted with but never officially signed on with Android, is now firmly in the Nokia camp.

So basically, the race to create the dominant mobile platform—and the prize of billions in mobile advertising dollars that goes with the title—just got more crowded. A lot more crowded.

Only yesterday, I wrote that Google may have missed its chance to become the biggest mobile platform player, now that the Android OS is reportedly facing delays while Apple's iPhone platform is gaining steam.

But now with Nokia—the No. 1 phone manufacturer in the world—in the mix, armed with several top-tier partners and an established OS that happens to be one of the best in the business, well ... Google's got its work cut out for it.

Note: Google and Yahoo! are, of course, competitors in the search space.

Related:
Nokia Buys Rest of Symbian, Will Make Code Open Source [PC World]
Press release [Nokia]