Symbian merger with Android is nonsense
THE SUGGESTION that the Symbian Foundation and Google's Android will soon merge their respective OS's into one has been described as "absurd" last night by a man who should know – Colly Myers, CEO of Symbian until 2005.
The claim that, "Within the next three to six months, Symbian and Android will combine to provide a single open source OS" was made by Jack Gold of J Gold Associates of Massachusetts, USA in a research note entitled, 'And-rian or Sym-droid?'.
Gold went on to declare that, "A combination of the Android and Symbian efforts would be good for the industry, good for Google and good for Symbian. It would also help spur a growth in the availability of applications and services. The downside is minimal. Everyone wins."
Not only does Mr Gold display a massive misunderstanding of how the whole cellular industry works, he also confessed to Googleandblog that he doesn't have a shred of evidence that this merger might actually happen. He admitted to Googleandblog that he has no insider knowledge from Nokia, Symbian or Google.
Myers pointed out to the INQ that Nokia had been keen to get its hands on what was then Psion's EPOC OS ever since Symbian was founded way back in June 1998. At that time Nokia had around 16 per cent of the handset market, Ericsson had about 18 per cent and Motorola had over 20 per cent.
Thanks to the creation of the Symbian Foundation, Nokia has finally wrestled complete control of Symbian and had no intention of letting that grip slip – especially to the likes of Google, Myers suggested.
Myers was chatting to the INQ at an event hosted by AQA (any Question Answer), a premium rate mobile service started by a number of ex-Symbian/Psion people including Myers himself and Paul Cockerton.
All UK mobile subscribers need to do is text their question to the shortcode 63336 and the company will provide an answer for £1. Cockerton admitted that it was sometimes obvious that users were cheating in pub quizzes when the same question was simultaneously asked by numerous people.
He also revealed that the day with the highest number of queries was Sunday. Curiouser and Curiouser. µ
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Why does anyone ever take notice of these people, at least when it comes to technology?

Don't you all remember how they predicted in 1998 that MS would have the mobile market sown up and Symbian didn't stand a chance?

Even in 2003 I remember someone stating as fact that "all smartphones are powered by Microsoft" and that "I really can't see how anyone other than Microsoft are going to win the smartphone market at this late stage".

These people get paid a fortune to spout this tripe, and then websites like this and newspapers repeat it, making them famous which in turns makes them even more in demand next time there's any kind of news because the thickos who work in the media just use people because they've heard theirnames before, without ever stopping to read what they've actually said before.

That shows you how much people actually care about the articles they write, or how important/serious they view the media.

And perhaps they're right. Who will remember the rumour that Symbian and Android would be merged in 5 years from now, let alone which idiot suggested it.

As with all the other anal-ists, if they had a clue they'd actually be working *in* the industry, not talking about it like critics. He's nothing more than Gary Bushell in a suit!
I agreed with Mr. Gold that it would be great, but was disappointed when he told me that he had no direct information but just conjecture on his part.

I appreicate the mention in your article.

I am to have a followup interview with him shortly to find any real substance to this report.

,Michael Martin
http://www.googleandblog.com/
Yet another pointless pontification from a self appointed pundit - someone who is so clueless as to beg belief.

For anyone with a modicum of technical knowledge, the idea that there could be any technical synergy (or technical anything for that matter) that would be positive is ridiculous, and without at least some technological plus, the idea is still born.

No interchangeable parts as it were.

I guess that article wasted 5 minutes of my life. 

Please try and report something worthwhile in the future.

Mike
She will be so pleased when the Sybian and Android merge.