Symbian has made the latest release of its mobile phone operating system available to licensees, the company said today.

In fact, they've had it already, Symbian admitted. It said Symbian OS 9.3-based handsets are already in development, many with 2007 ship dates scheduled.

Symbian said the new release reduces phone and "key application" start-up times. Improvements to the OS' memory management routines should result in more responsive apps and phone features. The OS gets native Wi-Fi support at last, building on the addition of HSDPA with Symbian OS 9.2, and brings on board USB On-the-Go for peer-to-peer device connections. IPSec has been added for secure VoIP services.

Handset vendors targeting emerging markets will welcome the addition of Hindi and Vietnamese to the OS' list of supported languages.

Symbian OS 9.3 is fully compatible with past OS 9 releases, the company said, making for the easy migration of existing handset designs. ®