There’s been a lot gloom and doom surrounding Nokia and its OS lately. The company is largely considered to have fallen behind to the likes of Apple and Android. Nokia’s CEO, Stephen Elop, is apparently considering some drastic actions, having described the company’s current situation as a “burning platform” and suggesting a symbolic jump into the cold Atlantic ocean below.
There’s been talk of moving the company to the Silicon Valley in the U.S. and dumping its dependence on Symbian, in favor of Windows 7’s open arms.
With all of this talk, it’s important to put some things into perspective–namely, according to recently released numbers from research firm Gartner, Symbian is still the world’s most popular smartphone operating system. In 2010, Symbian appeared on 37.6 of smartphones shipped. Android and Apple took 22.7 and 15.7 percent, respectively, with RIM (BlackBerry), grabbing 16 percent.
Of course, the most telling part of these numbers are how they compare to last year’s. Symbian dropped from 46.9 percent to 37.6–Android, meanwhile, grew a staggering 888.8 percent over last year.
Also worth noting is the fact that Nokia isn’t the only company making Symbian-based handsets. Fujitsu, Sharp, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson also manufacture devices for the platform.
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