Nokia and Accenture have finalized an agreement for Nokia to outsource Symbian software development and support activities to Accenture. Plans of the agreement were first announced on April 27, 2011.

"We look forward to partnering with Nokia as they continue to support Symbian and transition to the Windows Phone ecosystem," said Marty Cole, chief executive, Accenture Communications and High Tech group. "The highly skilled group of technologists and engineers transferring to Accenture will complement our current mobility skills and enhance the breadth, depth and scale of our capabilities, allowing us to meet the growing global demand for mobility services across many industries."

Under the agreement, Accenture will provide Symbian based software development and support services to Nokia through 2016. Approximately 2,800 Nokia employees located in China, Finland, India, United Kingdom and the United States, are expected to transfer to Accenture at closing, which is expected to take place in the early part of October, 2011.

I guess too much competition from the open source Google Android OS platform, the Symbian foundation has decided to make the Symbian Platform completely open as of today.

Here's what the blog says:

As of now, the Symbian platform is completely open source. And it is Symbian^3, the latest version of the platform, which will be soon be feature complete.

Open sourcing a market-leading product in a dynamic, growing business sector is unprecedented. Over 330 million Symbian devices have been shipped worldwide, and it is likely that a further 100 million will ship in 2010 with more than 200 million expected to ship annually from 2011 onwards.

Now the platform is free for anyone to use and to contribute to. It is not only a sophisticated software platform, It is also the focal point of a community. And a lot of the foundation's effort going forward will be to ensure the community grows and is supported in bringing great innovations to the platform and future devices.

It is a big day for all those people who have worked on preparing the Symbian source code over the past ten months.

From Symbian's side, the unsung heroes are Victor Palau, Tahir Mahmood, Pat Downey and Matt Davies, supported and encouraged by William Roberts; Ian Hutton who kept the communications flowing up, down and around the organization; Chris Davidson, who has been a key coordinator in the process and who has helped translate what is going on to those of us without a technical background; and Jo Stichbury, who has ensured that all the information that needs to be available is there for contributors and developers.

Outside of the foundation but very much involved: Sampo Savolainen, Mika Somero, Martin Platts, and Pia Vuorela. An additional thanks go to all the package owners who carry a key responsibility for innovation from here on.

Over the next five days we're going to bring you a raft of information on Symbian and the platform migration. So stay tuned for the full story - background, current status, technical details, the vision for 2010 and how to join the community.

souce: blog.symbian.org

Skype beta for Symbian has been announced.

This beta release of Skype for Symbian supports more than ten different handsets, with the production release planned to be compatible with even more phones.

Skype for Symbian supports:

• * Free Skype-to-Skype calling
• * Call phones with Skype credits or subscription
• * Receive calls on your Online Number
• * Instant Messaging
• * Group conversations
• * File sending and receiving

Skype for Symbian works over Wifi or 3G data connection. Recommend you get the unlimited data to avoid data charges.

Here's a review from someone who installed it onto Nokia 5800

• The UI works very well on my 5800 and it does support touch screen. However, first, I can't get the voice to work, neither incomiing or outgoing; second, I have unilimted world subscription, but the app does not reconigze this, it keeps saying I don't have skypeout credits; Third, when I press the green key on the phone in the App, it will use skype to call directly, it's great, but it has a bug which will ativate the phone's dial pad also; Fourth, the setting option desn't seem to be working.

via: skype.com