Symbian Foundation launches beta website

Code, tools, documentation and forums can be trialled by new members

CTIA, Las Vegas - 02 April 2009 - The Symbian Foundation today announces the start of its beta website test programme marking a significant milestone in the launch of the Symbian Foundation. Community involvement is paramount to the evolution of the Symbian Foundation platform and as such several thousand friends and members of the Symbian community are being invited to feedback on the website which will launch as a public beta in this quarter.

The website will include a full developer offering which includes platform release information, council charters, wikis, forums as well as access to the SDK, code repository, tools, documentation, wiki, bugtracker and forums.

The foundation continues to receive encouraging support from companies across the industry. Since the membership programme first opened in February, 81 companies have applied for membership and are either going through the formal process or have become members, 50 of which are first time endorsers.

Members will be entitled to the following, royalty free:

• to license, modify and distribute source code
• to gain access to council meeting plans and deliverables
• to participate in Working Groups & annual member meetings
• be eligible for Board and Council seats
• to foundation support incl. branding, marketing, legal, and business development

At CTIA in Las Vegas today, Symbian Foundation team members are engaging with its rapidly growing ecosystem of developers, hardware manufacturers and other partners. Symbian Foundation is exhibiting on stand Central Hall (C1/C2) # 4814 from 1-4th of April and participating in activities throughout the show, including the WIP Jam Developer session and the AT&T Dev Central Consumer Fast Pitch. The foundation’s Executive Director, Lee M. Williams, will also share his view of open source in mobile (details below). We invite you to come and join us or follow us on blog.symbian.org

"We’re excited to be working with our members and community friends on the public launch of our beta site - their feedback is extremely important in helping us evolve and develop our offering," said Lee. "With partners already contributing projects to the platform, members continuously showing their support, and the launch of our new beta site, we’re really excited about the next steps."

"The foundation stands for collaboration and for community, and CTIA will provide an excellent forum to meet and share ideas, perspectives and insights with new and existing supporters of the Symbian Foundation community. Our role is to help create a mass technological movement towards open source for mobile, and to support a community in creating the most powerful software platform the world has ever seen," continued Lee.

As previously announced, the foundation plans to move the foundation platform to open source in the next year. This will make the platform code available to all for free, bringing additional innovation and engaging an even broader community in future developments.

The foundation software licensing model and governance structure have been selected to secure transparency, encourage contribution and maintain platform consistency. The foundation will promote collaboration, contributions and active participation, and will operate as a meritocracy.

Symbian Foundation at CTIA Spring, 2009:

• Symbian Foundation stand
  Central Hall (C1/C2) # 4814
• AT&T Developer Summit (March 31)
  Symbian Foundation to take part in roundtable discussion on platform fragmentation
• AT&T Dev Central Consumer Fast Pitch Contest (April 1-2)
  Symbian Foundation to sponsor the event and take part in judging the finalists
• Lee Williams on panel discussion (2 April)
  The Blueprint of Convergence, Applications Operating Systems for Devices
  Location: Room S 223
• WIP- Developer Jam Session / tenpin bowling event (April 2)
  Symbian Foundation sponsored topic - What should an app store look like?

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Notes for editors

Symbian Foundation and all Symbian based trademarks and logos are trademarks of Symbian Software Foundation. Until the Symbian Foundation has become fully operational, Symbian Software Limited retains exclusive responsibility for all licensing and marketing activities related to Symbian OS.

About The Symbian Foundation

Symbian Foundation and all Symbian based trademarks and logos are trademarks of the Symbian Foundation.

The Symbian Foundation together with its ecosystem is creating the most proven, open and complete mobile software platform which is based on Symbian OS and contributed software assets from DOCOMO’s MOAP(S), Nokia’s S60, and Sony Ericsson. Symbian OS is the leading open mobile operating system that has shipped in over 250 million mobile devices to date.

The foundation plans to move the platform to open source over the next year, and has selected to use the Eclipse Public License. This will make the platform code available to all for free, bringing additional innovation and engaging an even broader community in future developments.

The foundation software licensing model and governance structure have been selected to secure transparency, encourage contribution and maintain platform consistency. The foundation will promote collaboration, contributions and active participation and will operate as a meritocracy.

Symbian Foundation now occupies offices in the UK (London) and US (Foster City), and will soon have regional operations in China (Beijing) and Japan (Tokyo).

For more information visit www.symbian.org or blog.symbian.org.

Media contacts

Global

Karen Hamblen
tel. +44 (0)20 7154 1707
e. karen.hamblen@symbian.com

UK

Katie Buckett
tel. +44 (0)20 7592 1200
e. Katie.Buckett@brands2life.com

US

Val Breslow
tel. +1 858 337 4217
e. valbreslow@earthlink.net