Nokia, the world’s largest producer of mobile phones, announced this week plans to fully acquire Symbian, the developer of the very widely-used S60 smartphone operating system, before the end of 2008. Further, Nokia announced plans to make Symbian an open source platform under the control of a non-profit organization, to be called the Symbian Foundation. Motorola, Sony Ericsson and NTT DoCoMo, all of whom also make Symbian-based phones, will also contribute technical assets. Other Symbian Foundation members will include AT&T, LG, Samsung, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that only T-Mobile expects to release a new mobile phone using Google’s Android open source mobile operating system before the end of 2008.  Sprint Nextel, China Mobile and AT&T, who all intended to release Android phones of their own this year, will most likely have to push their Android offerings into 2009, as a result of unexpected development delays.

Why should salespeople care about Symbian?

Nokia’s move is clearly meant to counter Google’s attempt to standardize the interface of mobile handsets under their open source platform — one that they control.  Nokia, as the largest producer of phones, can’t afford to let Google eventually dictate how phones should operate — even if it means taking a short-term financial hit to start it’s own open source mobile operating system initiative.  And the Symbian Foundation, with its impressive list of initial members, certainly has enough clout to compete effectively with the emerging Android platform, even if a revamped, standardized Symbian operating system isn’t available until 2010, if all goes as expected.

Google is finding that working with large mobile carriers can be challenging, as they each require significant support with integrating Android into their systems and devices.  Meanwhile, many software developers are creating some pretty cool applications for the Android platform, but without compatible phones in the market, no one will be able to run them.  This will not make the application developers happy — not at all.

These two latest developments are just the most recent maneuvers of behemoth competitors in the quickly escalating War of the Phones.  What this means is that sales professionals should consider several factors in their all-important mobile communications and computing platform choices, as follows:

• If you must buy a mobile phone before the end of 2008, consider an iPhone 3G.  If you can’t switch to an iPhone carrier, such as AT&T in the U.S., you might want to stick with a reliable Blackberry (such as the 8830 on Sprint and Verizon), and get as short a contract term as possible.
• If you plan to buy a mobile device in the next year, try to hold out until the first half of 2009, and look at the (hopefully) new Android phones, which will (hopefully) be available from several carriers.  If they perform as well as the initial demonstrations indicate, and if they are priced competitively, they may be the best alternative to an iPhone as an integrated mobile communication and computing platform.
• If you plan to hold on to your current mobile phone at least until 2010, either because you don’t care about the advanced features of the new generation of mobile devices, or because you are locked in with a long-term contract to your current carrier, don’t sweat it — new Symbian-based devices should be starting to appear, or at least start to be demonstrated.  Then you can select the platform you feel is the best value: iPhone, Android, Symbian or Blackberry.
• Meanwhile, don’t commit to any long-term phone contracts through 2011, if you can, so you can have the most flexibility as the next generation of new devices emerge into the market.

In the long view, all of this is excellent news for salespeople, as it means lots of competition for advanced features and functionality in mobile communications and computing.  And that should translate into more productivity at cheaper prices — good news for sales pros, for sure.  Meanwhile, don’t make any rash decisions, and keep your options open — and don’t let the clashes of the mobile phone titans scare you.

UPDATE: for an excellent quick analysis of the major mobile phone operating systems, check out this overview at TechCrunch.

Tags: Android, Google, Nokia, phones for sales professionals, Symbian, Symbian Foundation, War of the Phones, What phone should salespeople buy?