Finland-based Nokia announced on June 24 plans to acquire the remaining share of affiliate Symbian and establish the Symbian Foundation to promote a unified open software platform based on the Symbian operating system. Nine other leading telecommunications companies worldwide have been enlisted in the creation of this foundation, including NTT DoCoMo, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, Motorola, AT&T, STMicroelectronics, TI, and Vodafone.

Membership of the Symbian Foundation will be open to all organization. According to a Nikkei report, this foundation will be established in the first half of 2009. The first commercial products based on the unified platform incorporating technologies contributed by the member companies are slated for debut in 2010. It is further projected that starting in 2011, open software developed by this foundation will be made available for free.