Matsushita licenses Nokia software

Matsushita, the manufacturer of Panasonic mobile phones, has signed a deal to use Nokia's Series 60 platform in future multimedia handsets.

Series 60 is the user interface in phones such as the Nokia 7560 camera phone, which began shipping last month. It sits on top of the Symbian operating system, produced by a consortium of vendors including Ericsson, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Psion, Siemens and Sony Ericsson.

Today's deal consummates a trial which Matsushita began last year, when Nokia announced the start of its software licensing programme.

It also strengthens Nokia in its bid to control the market for mobile phone software, which Microsoft is bidding to enter with its Smartphone product.

Matsushita is a relative minnow in worldwide sales. Its participation in the UK market is effectively mothballed, with a small number of products still in the channel but no plans to launch new ones.

However, the company is a major player in Japan - still the most advanced mobile market in the world - and it built one of the first 3G handsets, so it could make an important contribution to the development of Series 60.

As Pertti Korhonen, executive vice president of mobile software at Nokia, said in a statement: "We look forward to their input to further develop the terminal software in the spirit of innovativeness and openness. By utilising interoperable platforms, Matsushita will be one of the key players in the industry to boost the mobile services market.

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