14 DAY TRIAL // South Korean mobile phone maker Smasung has been rumored recently to plan removing Symbian from its future smartphone roadmap. However, some news site went even further, stating that the company is also intending to stop the support for the OS, due to the launch of its own mobile phone platform, called bada.
While the company seems indeed on its way to deliver to the market only devices based on Windows Mobile, Android, Linux and its own bada platform, the support for Symbian is something that will not be removed from its plans. Moreover, Samsung also says that Symbian is still part of its multi-OS strategy for the mobile phone market.
“Samsung is an initial member of Symbian Foundation and continues to cooperate with Symbian Foundation. At the same time, Samsung supports various existing open operating systems including Symbian, Linux, Android, and Windows Mobile. To provide more choices to meet consumers' many different tastes and preferences, we will continue our 'multi-OS' strategy. Our policy is to provide what consumers want when they need,” is what the company said, according to mobileburn.
For what it's worth, the previous rumors suggested that the company would still deliver Symbian-based mobile phones to the market during 2010, and that it would stop launching such devices in 2011. The official statement from Samsung on the matter does not say expressly that it will still launch Symbian phones after that date, and “supporting the platform” does not necessarily imply that it will also deliver fresh phones based on it.
On the other hand, the handset vendor might also look forward to see how well its new bada OS is received among developers and users, and, based on the performance it shows on the market, to change its smartphone plans for the future. We should also wait for the first bada-based handset from Samsung to arrive on the market to see what the company aims at with them.