While Nokia announced a new partnership with Microsoft to use Windows Phone on its future smartphones, it is not the end of the road for Symbian and MeeGo. The company also outlined a reorganization that will see the creation of two business units, Smart Devices and Mobile Phones, focused on high-end smartphones and mass-market mobile phones respectively.
The Smart Devices unit will be “responsible for building Nokia’s leadership in smartphones.” Both Symbian and MeeGo will move into this unit. The Mobile Phone group will focus on connecting “the next billion people and bring them affordable access to the Internet and applications.”
Symbian will become a franchise platform. Essentially, Nokia will continue to support the platform (some 200 million strong) but will look to transition them over to its new strategy. It still expects to sell approximately 150 million more Symbian devices in the years to come.
MeeGo will become an open-source, mobile operating system project. Its focus will turn to “longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences.” Nokia also confirmed plans to release a MeeGo-related product later this year.
It sounds to me like both Symbian and MeeGo are now officially on life support…