Now the dust is starting to settle on the surprise announcement of the Symbian Foundation, many commentators are looking at the bigger picture - including ourselves, here at All AboutSymbian. Rafe has been looking at the strategic implications of the deal, and explains why it increases the chances of Symbian achieving long term success.

A change along these lines has been inevitable since Symbian's original share holding equality started to unravel (which can largely be traced by the decision of Psion to sell its stake in Symbian). Symbian's current shareholding is confused with some companies no longer actively involved in the Symbian ecosystem (Siemens, Panasonic) and Nokia holding the dominant share (just shy of 50%). The decision to unify the OS and the UI make sense too - the fragmented nature of Symbian platforms has long been a negative for developers. This dates from Symbian's decision to get out of the UI business - partly for financial resource reasons and partly because its owners wanted to control UI layers themselves. Nokia was always going to be the buyer of Symbian and the key driver in making any changes.

More in-depth discussion in Rafe's editorial.