Petri Sajari, Helsingin Sanomat, interviewed Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs and was told that by the end of this year there will be a Nokia device with a Snapdragon processor inside running the Symbian mobile operating system.
This is huge for a number reasons. First, Nokia and Qualcomm have been fighting each other over wireless patents for years. They finally resolved their issues in July 2008 with a settlement that involves Nokia paying an undisclosed, but predictably handsome amount of money, to Qualcomm over the course of the next 15 years.
Second, now that Symbian is open source, and assuming Nokia engineers port the modifications done to the Symbian kernel back to the publicly available branch of Symbian software, then this paves the way for other OEMs to pick up Qualcomm chipsets and run with Symbian software with little to no issues. Building with Qualcomm is easy since their platforms come with wireless radios. When a hardware manufacturer buys into the Qualcomm platform, the not only get a fast processor, they get WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and most importantly GSM/GPRS/UMTS and HSPA.
Third, this shows that Nokia and Qualcomm have really resolved their issues, and that the press release they issued last year saying that they’re working together was not just for show, but it was actually real, and that the results of said partnership are going to come soon. It usually takes 2 years to get a smartphone out on the market, so this Symbian device sounds just about perfect.
Huge thanks to @thebluenile who sent me an article, in Finnish, that details all of this. If you can read Finnish then check out the article after the break. It’s a photo from a real live newspaper. It’ll be an artifact in a few years.
Update: We’re going to be at Qualcomm’s Mobile World Congress party later tonight so if we get any new details we’ll make sure to post them here.
