Google Android and Symbian to merge?

A range of sources are suggesting that Google Android and Symbian are likely to merge before the end of the year, but they all seem to be trading off the same research note by J. Gold Associates, which made this claim, as reported by InformationWeek:

Nokia and other users of Symbian, which has the largest share of smartphones in the market, do not want to compete in the OS market, the firm said. With Google, the search engine entered the OS market to push the industry toward openness and a level playing field in offering applications and services on the devices.

"We expect that within the next three-six months, Symbian and Android will combine to provide a single open source OS," J. Gold said. "Many of the same sponsors are involved in both initiatives."

It definitely makes sense, and would make Symbian the absolute de facto standard for mobile open source (and, really, for mobile, period). It's already the market leader. Having Google's brand behind Symbian could very well mean "game over" for mobile Linux in the mobile phone market.

Some won't like this because they want Linux to win. I'm sympathetic to that view. But this isn't about Linux. It's about open source. Symbian is open source, and is an exceptional mobile operating system. Why reinvent the mobile open-source wheel?

[john55440]

Right now, all Android has to offer is an incomplete operating system that has not shipped on one single cell phone. It's currently not much competition for Symbian.

[martalli]

I had looked forward to Android, hoping for compatibility with the Linux desktop. Currently, only the aging Palms seem to work well with my linux computers, and that is somewhat poor, too. Is there any effort behind bringing compatibility between symbian and linux desktops?

[Kwasiowusu]

Nokia merge their dominant Symbian cell phone operating system with "Andriod", a piece of Google vaporware, that is not shipped on even a SINGLE cell phone today? That is the most stupid idea I ever heard of. FACT: Nokia dominates cell phone shipments on this planet, accounting for a massive 40% of all cell phone shipped on the planet, and selling over 120 million cell phones in the first quarter alone. Plus Symbian smart phones have the biggest market share amongst smart phones by far. Eventually, all Nokia cell phones are going to use Symbian, which is owned by Nokia. Why on earth would Nokia give up the control of their phone operating system to an arrogant outfit like Google, which has ZERO market share in cell phones or cell phone operating systems today? Not gonna happen.

[lmasanti]

Once again we are going into philosophical wars! Open/free vs. Close/Propietary.
I think we are missing the real "user experience": that's what gives the iPhone.
And from a dev point of view, programming for the iPhone is a lot like programming for the Mac. Maybe in this point it is better to have Linux-underwear than Symbian.
And then it comes in how you distribute the apps and how you make money from them...

So the "end-to-end" solution of iPhone... both for users and developers...

[Kwasiowusu]

@ Tlmasanti
The iPhone sold 717,000 in total in the last quarter. Nokia sold 1.3 million cell phones A DAY, in the last quarter. As electronics component prices of fall, all Nokia cell phones are going to use Symbian eventually. Nokia dominates cell phone sales today, have dominated cell phone sales for over 10 years, and keep increasing worldwide market share, and getting stronger and more profitable. That is what counts. Not some puny iPhone sales to a tiny bunch of overpaid people, with more money than sense.

[Michael-Martin]

I posted about this at http://www.googleandblog.com/ earlier this week as Mr. Gold contacted me to state he has no direct information from Google, Nokia, or Symbian but its simply a prediction.

I would like it to happen but not likely in the near future, perhaps in 2009/2010 especially if Android gets the edge into the China market.

,Michael Martin
http://www.googleandblog.com/

[Kwasiowusu]

Nokia dominates in the Chinese market. In fact Nokia has its highest worldide market shares in India and China, and Chinba is the world's biggest cell phone market by far today. There is zero chance of the vapourware Android, with zero cell phones in China runing Andriod today, will suddenly "get the edge in Chia". Exactly who is going to sell them Google cell phones for Android to get the drop on the dominant nokia then?

[skurewu]

It's a win-win situation for Google. If they merge, Android does awesome. If not, there will still be open source software to promote an open web that Google's search engine can serve ads to.

[ArtInvent]

This is rumour on top of speculation.

If Symbian really goes GPL open source, I wouldn't care if Linux were on phones or not. If you scale 'Linux' all the way down to a phone size OS, is it still Linux anyway? It's not like you'll just be able to throw Ubuntu packages onto it. I think development for phones will stay very distinct, and the more important things than whether or not it's 'Linux' is whether it's truly free and open for development and how many phones it's on. Symbian as FOSS would be entirely welcome.

[oneoclock]

Android is Java on top of Linux and it's not all that open (yet?) as many developers have found out trying to develop for it but being denied access to the source code. Likewise with Symbian, it's been declared "open source" by way of a press release but how that will actually play out in reality remains to be seen. In practical terms, at this point in time, neither of the two are any more open than Windows Mobile or the iPhone's OS. This may or may not change, but right now it's all nothing but hype and speculation.

[pscoop]

Matt please stop jumping the gun - Symbian is not open source (yet), and neither is Android (yet). Both have talked about it, but to this point neither have actually made any code available. Given their actions to date, I think we're more likely to see Symbian source code released before we see anything from Google - the Symbian guys I've seen talk are far more humble and sincere in their plans to build an open source community around their codebase than Google folk have been.

@ArtInvent: I think Symbian annouced they are planning to use the Eclipse Public License, and start releasing code sometime in 2009 - the Nokia buyout isn't a done deal yet, it still has to go through competition committee, and various legal hurdles, so they have to be careful not to promise anything.