The EC and 24 European organizations will share the bill for a €22 million ($31.0m) project to boost Symbian development and ward off the encroaching Android.
Symbian Foundation has forged a consortium of 24 European organizations across eight EU countries to lead the project under the name SYMBEOSE, which stands for Symbian – the Embedded Operating System for Europe.
The foundation did not name any members, but said they include devices makers, mobile operators, consumer electronics companies, application developers and universities.
The EC-led ARTEMIS joint technology initiative has agreed to match the funds allocated by the SYMBEOSE foundation 50-50.
ARTEMIS is a public-private research partnership whose members include EU member states.
Symbian technology manager Richard Collins said development would concentrate on “radically improving the basis for new device creation on Symbian.”
Areas will include asymmetric multiprocessing, cloud computing and projects to get the platform into embedded devices beyond mobile phones. The project also has a marketing development component.
Blogger Kevin Tofel on GigaOm speculated that some founding members of SYMBEOSE have joined to stop Google’s Android OS - as well as its widening reach, now it is in televisions through Google TV.
Western Europe is by far Symbian platform's strongest market, where it has a 54.4% share, according to ComScore.
But it is feeling heat from its rivals – its market share fell 14.4 percentage points year-on-year. Android gained 5.6 points to 6.1%, while Apple's share grew by nine points to 19.2%.
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