14 DAY TRIAL // Symbian Foundation Executive Director Lee Williams has just announced his resignation from the company. Williams didn't want to comment the reasons of his decision, but the company's official announcement cites “personal reasons.”
Williams has already been replaced (effective immediately) by the non-profit organization's Chief Financial Officer Tim Holbrow. This move adds to the recent “re-organization” at the top of different Nokia departments.
The Symbian Foundation is owned by Nokia in majority, but lately it has lost important support from other handset manufacturers, such as Samsung. The Korean company decided to drop its support for the Symbian OS and concentrate more on Android.
After losing its head of mobile solutions last month, Nokia seems to either give up Symbian or is preparing a total redesign of the operating system from scratch.
Here is the full statement of the non-profit organization:
“The Symbian Foundation is today announcing that Lee M. Williams has stepped down from his position as Executive Director for personal reasons. We thank Lee for his work over the past two years and wish him all the best in his future ventures.
The Board of Directors has appointed Tim Holbrow, formerly the Symbian Foundation’s CFO, to the position of Executive Director with immediate effect. We congratulate Tim and welcome him to his new role.”
Williams´ reasons behind the resignation may lay in all the negative feedback that Symbian^3 received since Nokia N8 hit the shelves.
It's interesting to note that Nokia Symbian OS is still one of the most popular mobile operating systems in the world, but if things continue this way Android will probably take it on.
The problem with Nokia is that they decided to play it safe for too long and didn't manage to come with anything really new and innovative on the market.
Anyway, let's hope that MeeGo will be Nokia's rabbit in the hat, which will bring the Finnish company back where it belongs, among the most innovative handset manufacturers