Nokia Corp is buying out Symbian Ltd

Nokia Corp is buying out other shareholders of handset software firm Symbian Ltd and will open the software for royalty-free use in a move seen as a response to new rivals such as Google.

Symbian's software is used in two-thirds of so-called smartphones with computer-like capabilities and 6 percent of all cellphones, but open-source platforms such as Google's Android as well as Apple's iPhone will challenge its dominance.

Currently, its closest rival is Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. "The move's a shrewd response to growing threats from other providers of mobile phone software," said Geoff Blaber of UK-based research firm CCS Insight, citing the open-source LiMo Foundation as well as Google and Apple.

Nokia will pay 264 million euros ($410 million) for the 52 percent of British-based Symbian it does not already own.

The Finnish company also said on Tuesday it and other top cellphone makers along with operators AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone and chip makers Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics had formed the Symbian Foundation to develop the software further.

Nokia will contribute Symbian and its S60 software assets to the foundation, while other members will put in their UIQ and MOAP software to create a new joint Symbian platform in 2009.

"It offers us an opportunity to innovate faster on a bigger, united, more widely accepted platform," Kai Oistamo, head of Nokia's devices business, told Reuters.

"It also enables us to deliver new products, we believe, faster to the market." Nokia said Sony Ericsson, Ericsson, Panasonic and Siemens had accepted the offer for their Symbian stakes, and it also expected Samsung Electronics to accept.

"The biggest surprise is that Nokia gets full ownership all at once, and at a good price," said Karri Rinta, analyst at Handelsbanken. "This was a logical move. There was pressure for Nokia to increase its holding, especially since there were owners such as Panasonic and Siemens who were there for historic reasons."