BARCELONA–Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) wasn’t the only software developer to release a new mobile operating system at Mobile World Congress this week. The Symbian Foundation announced the feature set for the first fully open-source version of its OS at the show, just a few weeks after issuing its first open-source license. Called Symbian 3, the OS won’t be ready until the end of the first quarter, but the Foundation decided to give a sneak peek at the world’s largest wireless trade show.
The new build supports a bevy of new features that weren’t available in old releases such as multi-touch support, music store integration, HDMI connectivity to TVs and other home networking devices, 2D and 3G graphics acceleration and better abilities to run multiple applications simultaneously.
Formerly owned by Nokia (NYSE:NOK), the vendor decided to turn Symbian into a non-profit foundation and open up the code in 2008 as it faced mounting pressure from Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android and other open-source and proprietary operating systems. On Monday, Nokia announced a partnership with Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) to take effectively the same approach to netbooks, tablets and other mobile Internet devices. The two will combine their Linux development efforts to create MeeGo OS, and will handle application distribution from their separate app stores. Symbian 3 and MeeGo have in common their development environment, Qt, so applications developed for one platform can be easily ported to the other.