SAN FRANCISCO—Even though two of its board members and handset manufacturers have decided to leave, it is too early to play taps over the Symbian Foundation and its smartphone operating systems, according to the head of the foundation's global alliance program.
In an interview on the show floor of the CTIA Enterprise & Applications conference, Lawrence Berkin said the "jury is still out" on what smartphone OSes will succeed.
Sony Ericsson and Samsung, both board members, announced in recent weeks they would no longer build phones using Symbian. Berkin said he regretted their departure, but that he continued to be optimistic about partnerships with other OEMs. Symbian still has good traction through Nokia and Japanese manufacturers, as well as China.
"There is activity," he said. "It is early days in the market." He said network migrations to LTE and that interface's data capabilities make Symbian more attractive.
Symbian, which is a free open-source OS, also has an advantage over smartphone systems that require a license, such as Microsoft Windows Phone and Apple iPhone. Google's Android also has litigation issues over its technology, he said, that could help Symbian's traction.
Berkin said he is spending a lot of time in Japan and China, where he thinks Symbian can gain a bigger footprint. He said Android hasn't had much success in China because of that country's bad relationship with Google, pushing instead its homegrown Baidu search engine. Baidu could become the search engine on Chinese Symbian handsets.
Symbian remains the world's dominant smartphone OS, with a 41 percent market share, according to the analyst firm Gartner, although it has lost 10 percent of its share in the last year. Google Android has a 17 percent market share, up from 2 percent a year ago, Gartner said.
The latest version of Symbian, Symbian 3, is being shown off at its Moscone Center booth. The system is running on Nokia's new N8 handset, which includes HDMI output for video to a large screen.