Symbian Foundation is good for Nokia, bad for Google, says analyst

"We expect Nokia to use royalty-free Symbian software as a loss-leader to drive profitable growth in handsets and services in 2009. This is a good move for Nokia, because cheaper smartphones for the mass-market will eventually drive higher global volumes of Nokia devices and Ovi content."

Bonny Joy, an analyst at Strategy Analytics, added: "Lower costs for the Symbian operating system spell bad news for licensable rivals, such as Google Android and Microsoft Windows Mobile. They will impact Android on volume and Microsoft on value. Symbian will match Android on zero-dollar pricing, and this diminishes one of its major competitive advantages. For Microsoft, the pressure will surely mount to cut the price of its license fees to handset vendors, which we estimate to be a relatively high $14 per unit worldwide in 2008."