Intel joins Symbian camp — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{Close to Nokia at Series 60} Intel joins Symbian camp

6 Oct 2004 at 04:37 GMT Timo Poropudas

Intel, Nokia and Symbian announced tTuesday a collaboration to bring smartphones based on the Nokia Series 60 Platform to market using Intel technology as part of Intel's recent membership in the Nokia Series 60 Product Creation Community.

Also, Intel and Symbian have agreed to invest in the joint development of a reference platform to enable a new class of 3G devices based on Symbian OSand Intel XScale Technology.

Up to this point Xscale-based mobile devices have been mainly on Microsoft’s mobile operating systems.

The Series 60 Platform is licensed by some of the foremost mobile phone manufacturers including Lenovo, LG Electronics, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sendo and Siemens.

As part of its new role as a member of the Series 60 Product Creation Community, Intel will complement the Series 60 Platform by providing high performance and low power processing to enable mobile browsing, multimedia messaging and content downloading, as well as a host of personal information management and telephony applications. The Series 60 Platform is the latest smartphone user interface to be supported by Intel technology.

Also, Intel and Symbian are investing in the co-development of a reference platform. The development agreement focuses on building the first 3G reference platform that utilizes Intel's and Symbian's expertise in smartphone technology. The reference platform will enable mobile phone manufacturers to create differentiated handsets while significantly reducing development time - speeding delivery of new phones to market.

"The next generation of handsets for 3G networks will require a platform approach that couples low power and high performance with robust application development," said Sam Arditi, general manager of Intel's Cellular and Handheld Group.

"Intel's wireless platforms combine leading-edge hardware with Intel's decades of experience in creating application ecosystems for data networks. Working with Nokia and Symbian to help bring Series 60-based devices to market means that developers and phone manufacturers will have new compelling tools to deliver on the promise of 3G."

"We are delighted that Intel is joining the Series 60 Product Creation Community," said Antti Vasara, vice president, Nokia Technology Marketing and Sales. "The wide adoption of Series 60 Platform and Symbian OS by key wireless technology providers such as Intel is essential for providing competitive solutions for the smartphone market. By joining forces with Intel, Nokia has an additional compelling Series 60 3G offering for handset manufacturers, operators and developers around the world."

"We are delighted with the collaboration between Nokia, Intel and Symbian to develop a 3G reference platform," said Symbian CEO David Levin. "This co-development marks a deepening of the relationship between Intel and Symbian. By utilizing reference platforms from semiconductor technology providers such as Intel, Symbian OS licensees will be able to focus their energies to develop an even wider variety of differentiated, competitively priced Symbian OS products that meet the specific needs of the market and their network operator customers."