Nokia completes Symbian acquisition

Nokia spent most of Tuesday buzzing about its N97 phone, but it also quietly completed an important step in its plan to evolve as a mobile computing company.

Symbian announced that Nokia has formally completed the acquisition of the world's biggest smartphone operating system company. The companies announced their plans earlier this year to have Nokia buy out the remaining partners in Symbian with the ultimate goal of releasing the Symbian operating system under an open-source license.

Devices such as the N97 run Symbian OS, which is by far and away the most widely used smartphone operating system in the world thanks to market-share leader Nokia's historically close ties with the developer. Starting next year, Nokia intends to form the Symbian Foundation with companies like AT&T, Texas Instruments, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and others with the intent of creating a royalty-free open-source operating system. Sound familiar?

After entertaining the world press in Barcelona during the early part of this week, Symbian and Nokia executives will be in San Francisco later this week to discuss their plans for mobile computing and open source, and we'll have reports from the Symbian Partner Event on Thursday.

Via CNET News

Analyst says iPhone kept smart phone growth alive

One analyst thinks that if it wasn't for the iPhone, smart phone growth would have slowed to a crawl last quarter.

Charlie Wolf of Needham & Company released some data recently, as captured by MacNN, and said he believes that Apple's iPhone accounted for virtually all the sequential growth in the market during the third quarter, which totaled 28.6 percent. That's when Apple launched the iPhone 3G and sold 6.9 million units, putting it in second place among all smart phone vendors with 16.6 percent of the market.

At first glance it seems a bit of a stretch to give Apple sole credit for keeping smart phone growth alive during the period. But market leader Nokia posted a lackluster quarter, and the smart phone market has been growing at a much faster clip than that for some time now. Wolf thinks that had the iPhone 3G not been such a hit, smart phone growth would have slowed to a trickle.

That might not bode well for the current quarter, as Wolf notes that as many as 2 million iPhones sold during the third quarter might have been designated for the channel, and not actually sold to real people until the fourth quarter. That could mean smart phone growth is going to flatline this holiday season or even fall as Apple's carrier partners work through channel inventory and the economy dampens demand. But Wolf thinks Apple and RIM are in decent shape because consumers--especially in the US--are showing a preference for integrated hardware/software phones like the iPhone and BlackBerry.

Via CNET Crave

Mystery phone touchscreen N97 unveiled at Nokia World

BARCELONA, SPAIN--The rumors have gotten it right again, almost. For the past several weeks, Nokia, has, taking a leaf out of Apple's product marketing book, dangled a carrot to the tech world by keeping its upcoming product cloaked in secrecy. Since then, the Web has been on fire with speculation about Nokia's mystery phone, including rumor that it could be a touchscreen phone to rival the iPhone.

While the N97 announced at Nokia World 2008 today in Barcelona, Spain, does have a generous 3.5-inch touchscreen (640 x 360-pixel) display, it also comes with a slideout flip-up QWERTY keypad. So, apple-to-apple, this resembles the HTC TyTN II or even the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 far more than the said iPhone.

As the newest flagship model in Nokia's Nseries lineup, and after a glance at the showpiece, expect everything but the kitchen sink here. In addition to 802.11b/g wireless LAN and GPS (with A-GPS), the N97 comes with HSDPA and A2DP Bluetooth radios. There's also support for multiple playback formats, a 3.5mm audio jack, VGA-quality video recording at 30fps, 5-megapixel image capture and the latest Series60 5th Edition OS. Though what's most impressive about the N97 is its huge 32GB onboard memory, which is one of the highest capacities we have seen on a phone thus far. Additionally, the handset also comes with a built-in microSD card slot, which can currently support up to 16GB media, bringing the maximum storage possible on the N97 to an impressive 48GB.

The N97 is expected to be available worldwide in the first half of 2009 at an estimated price of 550 euros (US$694) before tax or subsidies. You can read more about Nokia World here in our first-hand coverage.

Countdown to Nokia's new product announcement

In the tech world, it's rare that a new product remains a complete secret from the prying eyes of gadget enthusiasts and bloggers, but somehow Nokia has done it. On Tuesday, in conjunction with the Nokia World 2008 Conference in Barcelona, Spain, the Finnish cell phone manufacturer will reveal a new device, and it's a complete mystery.

According to Robert Scoble, Nokia executives have been bragging that "the Internet has no clue" what it's about to announce, and that all guesses, including a new touchscreen cell phone (Engadget Mobile thinks it could possibly be a touch-based Communicator) have all been wrong. However, the popular thought seems to be that the gadget will be something to rival the Apple iPhone and T-Mobile G1.

OK, Nokia, we'll bite. The announcement is planned for Tuesday at 12.15am PST. Nokia has also set up a countdown site so you can be notified of the news. Any guesses as to what the mystery product could be?

We'll have all the details for you Tuesday afternoon in Asia, as our own CNET Asia senior editor Reuben Lee patiently counts down over in Barcelona at Nokia World 2008 Conference for the mystery unveiling. Click here for the latest updates.

Via CNET Crave

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