Last days of Symbian - business ticking over
Finland shores up freebie shortfall
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Symbian has published its unaudited results for the first half of 2008, the last time the company will be doing so before it becomes part of the Nokia empire later this year. They show things are slightly slower than this time last year, but overall doing fine.
A company whose primary product is about to be turned into a freebie could be concerned that 97 per cent of its income is still coming from royalty payments, but there'll be money from Finland to make up the shortfall once the Symbian OS starts being given out free.
Consultancy services have gone up since 2007, increasing by 76 per cent to £9m in the first half of 2008. It's worth remembering that those companies paying royalties receive quite a bit of support, so that income should increase markedly once the OS becomes free.
Third-party applications for the platform are now knocking 10,000, up by 25 per cent on last year. Once the two graphical layers - UIQ and S60 - are combined, development for the platform should get even easier, though there'll be some transitional aches and pains.
Regulatory hurdles aside, Nokia will take complete control of Symbian later this year, and the Symbian Foundation will take over management of the OS early in 2009. Symbian turned over £85.4m in the first half of 2007, five per cent more than the £81.3m the company managed in the last six months. But those figures will certainly represent a high-point for the company, and it's probably the last time the company will be posting independent results at all. ®
COMMENTS
Suicide
I can't believe Symbian allowed themselves to do this. I can only imagine the people at the top of the organisation are getting some hefty wedge of cash and couldn't give a shit about the company.
I give it 18 months before the idiots at Nokia say "You know, giving this software away for free is actually costing us a bloody fortune. Fuck it. Kill it." It will only take a new CEO with a different (i.e cost-cutting) mind-set to kill Symbian stone dead.
Talk about putting your eggs in one basket. Sheesh. What have you done Symbian?
Farewell Psion/Symbian. You truly were world class innovaters, of the like we won't see in a long long time. Your products were innovative, quirky, reliable and joyful to use. I mourn your loss. The last British innovator, (along with Inmos and Sinclair Research) gone. RIP.
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