Panasonic looks set to focus its effort around the Linux operating system rather than the Symbian OS. In a recent press release Matsushita announced they would be reorganising global R&D. It is accelerating development of the Linux OS, and closing the US R&D office where Panasonic's Symbian development took place. Read on for more and a status check on Symbian and S60.
Now this is a real shame - Panasonic are the first Symbian company to produce a *decent* S60 flip phone. No weird crashes, QuickOffice built in - all it needed was 3G and it would have been perfect. Oh well.
I wonder what distro of Linux Panasonic are using? One for the Palm rumour mill I think....
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I suspect the problem is that Nokia have too much of an advantage when it comes to producing new S60 devices. By the time they release a new version of the UI to the other manufacturers they already have devices that use it well down the development path. When you have a look at the range of new S60 devices due from Nokia next year its hard to see any gaps that the other manufacturers could fill.
My main worry is that Nokia could become too successful as the only device that seems to challenge the new product range is the SE P990.
I can see why some manufacturers are tempted by Linux but for use as a fully fledged mobile phone OS I think its years behind Symbian.
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