3 jumps on board Symbian Foundation

The Symbian Foundation has announced a slew of new members, including the mobile operator 3.

The Foundation is a Nokia-led consortium that was recently established to grow and open-source Symbian over the next two years, while incorporating Symbian-derived platforms such as Series 60 and UIQ into the main operating system. Nine new members are joining, of which three are operators: 3, América Móvil and TIM.

Also joining is the semiconductor manufacturer Marvell, as well as services and software vendors Aplix, EB, EMCC Software, Sasken and TietoEnator. The original members of the Symbian Foundation are Nokia, Symbian, Motorola, AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.

3's director of products, Fergal Walker, said yesterday: "3 is pleased to support the Symbian Foundation and believe this is a significant development in open mobile software platforms.

"3 has established a leading position in mobile internet with the highly acclaimed x-series suite of services, which has now evolved into an even more open approach to the internet on mobile devices. We believe that this initiative will provide an excellent opportunity to expand the range and quality of services for our customers."

According to the Symbian Foundation, more than 150 organisations have "registered their interest in joining" since the organisation was announced just over two weeks ago.

Original article: Symbian Foundation gets nine new members from ZDNet UK