None other than President and CEO Stephen Elop has confirmed that Nokia will continue to update Symbian until at least 2016. In an interview for the Nokia Conversations blog, he said (around the 2:55 mark in the video below):
We are in a period where the investment in Symbian absolutely continues. Even as we go through a transition to our primary smartphone platform, Windows Phone, you will see that continued investment and I know there have been questions about how long does that continue and we’ve now been very clear about that – that software updates to Symbian devices are expected until at least 2016. So there’s a long history still to be paved for Symbian in the future.
While this will likely be good news for Symbian enthusiasts, it also confirms that Nokia does have an exit strategy in mind.