DigiTimes have reported that Nokia is planing to speed up the development of the Symbian platform by launching Symbian^3, which will feature multi-touch functions, in the third quarter of 2010. Apparently the Finish giants are looking to scrap Symbian^2 altogether and continue to push the Symbian development even further with the release of Symbian^4 by the end of this year.

According to Michael Hsu, General Manager of Nokia Taiwan:

“The Symbian version 4 is believed to be based on the Qt cross-platform application development framework developed by Trolltech, which Nokia acquired in June 2008,” said industry sources. “Qt will allow software developers to develop application software supporting Symbian and Maemo platforms simultaneously.”

“For terminal end products, Nokia will continue to offer Maemo-based mobile computing devices, Symbian S60-based smartphones as well as Symbian S40-based feature phones, with the prices for Symbian S60-based models likely to be more competitive in 2010.”

“By 2011, smartphones based on the Symbian S60-platform will account for 55% of Nokia’s total handset shipments, followed by Symbian S40 feature phones at 35% and Maemo-based devices at 10%.”

Source: DigiTimes

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