Softbank Mobile Joins Symbian Foundation

The initial board members of the Symbian Foundation welcomed the latest supporters of the initiative at the interim Steering Group meeting in Tokyo this week. This announcement [pdf] includes support for the Symbian Foundation plans from 7 more companies; Borqs, Comarch, HiQ, Kanrikougaku Kenkyusho Ltd. (K3), L&T Infotech, Renesas Technology Corp. and SoftBank Mobile Corp. who add their endorsements to the 52 other companies already announced.

“SoftBank Mobile welcomes plans for the Symbian Foundation,” said Masanobu Yoshida, Senior Vice President, SoftBank Mobile Corp. “We believe its activities will establish a leading open platform for mobile. Participating in the work of the Symbian Foundation and adopting the platform will enable us to concentrate resources to deliver more appealing devices more quickly to a worldwide market. We are convinced that this mobile platform will accelerate innovation in the mobile industry and increase customer satisfaction.”

“Renesas is very enthusiastic about the plans to create the Symbian Foundation. The concept behind it is convincing and we are sure that many developers will be attracted to support this platform,” said Hideaki Chaki, General Manager in the System Solution Business Group at Renesas Technology Corp. “This will mean that more features will be available in a shorter timeframe. From this perspective, users, manufacturers and suppliers will benefit a lot from the planned Symbian Foundation. We are looking forward working closely with the Symbian Foundation and its members in the future.”

According to Forbes, Nokia’s Symbian acquisition, which is still pending regulator approvals, expects to release the first unified Symbian Foundation software next year and introduce a completely new platform by June 2010.

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