Symbian acquires Origin UK's Development centre in Cambridge

Symbian adds Advanced Technology Group to develop WID reference designs

LONDON, United Kingdom - 9th April, 1999 - Symbian today announced the opening of a new office in Cambridge, UK with the acquisition of Origin's UK Advanced Technology Group. All staff at the Cambridge office will be retained by Symbian - adding key resources to the continuing development of Symbian's EPOC platform.

Juha Christensen, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Symbian, comments "Origin UK represents for Symbian a significant addition of key experienced software developers. Renowned for their excellence in software design, Origin UK's Advanced Technology Group will enhance our product roadmap in extending our Device Families for wireless iInformation devices. Origin UK's microprocessor team will further strengthen Symbian's initiatives with ARM and Motorola's M-CORE RISC CPU's."

The acquisition of the Origin's UK Advance Technology Group expands Symbian's presence to one of the world's most renowned centres for research and design. The office is based in Cambridge's Science Park - which was set up in 1975 by the University of Cambridge. The close proximity to ARM and other Cambridge based technology companies will boost Symbian's efforts in supporting and building relationships within the wireless iInformation device industry.

Symbian, as the key focal point for the wireless iInformation device industry, is contributing and developing technology that will be used by millions of mobile users in their Smartphones and Communicators. During March 1999 Symbian extended alliances to promote end-to-end solutions for wireless iInformation devices with NTT DoCoMo and Sun Microsystems.

With these latest additions Symbian has brought in significant skills and experience which will further the support for industry technology standards in Symbian's EPOC platform. The acquisition of Origin UK's Advanced Technology Group also follows the recent acquisition by Symbian of the Ronneby software development site from Ericsson. With these latest deals Symbian has met its short-term operations goal in doubling headcount.

About Symbian

Symbian owns, licenses, develops and supports the EPOC platform - providing leading software, user interfaces, application frameworks and development tools for wireless iInformation devices such as communicators and smartphones. Symbian aims to promote standards for the interoperation of wireless iInformation devices with wireless networks, content services, messaging and enterprise wide solutions.

Based in London, Symbian has offices in Kanazawa, Japan; Ronneby, Sweden and the San Francisco Bay Area. Symbian is owned by Psion, Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia. Symbian's website can be found at Symbian

About Origin

Origin B.V. is a global information technology services company, with over 17,000 people providing a full range of services. With 1998 revenues of $1.9 billion, Origin delivers business solutions for multinational corporations and other complex organizations with offices in over 31 countries worldwide. With more than 4,500 ERP professionals, Origin maintains close relationships with the premier developers of mission-critical ERP technologies such as SAP and other major enterprise application providers. As a result, Origin consistently brings to its customers the latest ideas from industry-leading trend setters in the ERP marketplace. More information on Origin is available on its web site,  Origin IT

Symbian and the EPOC logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symbian Ltd. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Enquiries

Symbian Please direct enquiries to: +44 207 154 1383 press@symbian.com

Origin UK Peter Young +44 1883 628049 peter.w.young@uk.origin-it.com