Nokia to buy out Symbian partners for $410 million

Mobile phone maker Nokia announced Tuesday that it plans to acquire the 52-percent of mobile software specialist Symbian that it does not already own at an offer of €3.647 ($5.67) per share, in a cash deal valued at about €264 million, or $410 million.

In addition, Nokia and a number of other electronics makers are forming the Symbian Foundation to drive the development of Web applications for use by consumers on cell phones. The foundation plans to provide a unified platform that has a common user interface framework and that will be available for all foundation members under a royalty-free license.

Nokia said yesterday it had the agreement of its other partners in Symbian - LM Ericsson Telephone Co., Siemens AG and Panasonic - for the acquisition. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said it was reviewing the offer for its 4.5-per cent stake.

The Symbian Foundation will comprise a 10-person board split evenly between handset makers Nokia, LG Electronics Inc., Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung, and operators and wireless chipmakers AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Texas Instruments, Vodafone Group and STMicroelectronics NV.

The move comes as demand increases for smartphones and other advanced wireless devices, and as Nokia faces a growing challenge from Apple Inc's iPhone, a competing operating system from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Research In Motion's Blackberry devices and Google's plan to create a suite of phones based on its mobile software platform, Android.

Calling it a ''bold, natural move for Symbian'', its CEO Nigel Clifford said that the combined ''vision is to become the most widely used software platform on the planet.''