A brief history of Symbian

2007

• ScreenPlay and FreeWay launched bringing big screen effects and broadband to consumers’ pockets
• New R&D centre opens in China
• 20 million smartphones shipped in Japan
• Symbian announces Symbian OS v9.5
• Symbian introduces POSIX libraries on Symbian OS

2006

• 100 million smartphones shipped worldwide
• Symbian launches Symbian Signed to make application signing faster
• Symbian and Sling Media partner to bring personal TV home viewing to consumers
• Symbian OS smartphone shipments reach 10 million in Japan

2005

• Nigel Clifford named CEO of Symbian Limited
• Symbian OS v9 announced
• New Symbian OS phones unveiled: Lenovo P930, Motorola A1010, Panasonic X800, Samsung SGH-D720, Sendo X2, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, FOMA F901iC, Nokia N90, Nokia N91, Nokia N70, Nokia 6682, FOMA D901i, FOMA F901iS, D901iS
• Symbian licenses Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync protocol for Symbian OS

2004

• Sharp licenses Symbian OS
• Sir Peter Gershon joins Board of Symbian Limited as an independent chairman
• Symbian shareholders purchase Psion stake in Symbian and invest a further £50m in cash funding
• Lenovo, China’s largest IT corporation, licenses Symbian OS
• Symbian OS v8.0 announced
• Arima and LG Electronics license Symbian OS
• New Symbian OS phones unveiled: Panasonic X700, Motorola A1000, Nokia 6260, 6630, 9500, 7610 and N-Gage QD, Samsung SGH-D710, Sony Ericsson P910, FOMA F900iT,F900iC and F880iES

2003

• Nokia 6600, the first phone to utilize Symbian OS v7.0s, produced
• Symbian OS v7.0s unveiled
• Successive new Symbian OS phones unveiled:
  FOMA F2102v and F900i, Motorola A920 and A925, Nokia 7700, Sendo X, Siemens SX1, Sony Ericsson P900
• BenQ announces the P30, based on UIQ
• Samsung becomes a Symbian shareholder

2002

• NTT DoCoMo launches 3G FOMA F2051 from Fujitsu
• Sendo licenses Symbian OS
• Siemens becomes a Symbian shareholder
• Symbian OS v7.0 for 3G mobile phones unveiled
• Sony Ericsson joins Symbian as a shareholder and licensee

2001

• Fujitsu licenses Symbian OS
• The first 2.5G Symbian OS phone, the Nokia 7650, is announced
• The Nokia 9210 Communicator goes on sale to the public

2000

• Sony and Sanyo license Symbian OS
• The world’s first Symbian OS phone, the Ericsson R380,
  goes on sale to the public

1999

• Matsushita (Panasonic) joins Symbian as shareholder and licensee
• Symbian awarded title of 'best overall' company with the 'best long term potential' by US magazine Red Herring

1998

• Symbian established as a private independent company in June 1998, owned by Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Psion