Stories about: Psion

As if "openness" wasn't already the key word of the year for mobile communications, Nokia took the concept a step further Tuesday, announcing plans to create an organization called the Symbian Foundation, which will make the Symbian mobile operating system an open platform, with licenses to be offered royalty-free.

Nokia Corp. is to acquire Psion PLC's stake in the Symbian mobile operating system and become its majority shareholder with 63 percent of Symbian Ltd. Symbian now looks like a Nokia operating system, with other players likely to use it only for niche products, said analysts.

Samsung Electronics is taking a 5 per cent stake in smart phone operating system software developer Symbian.

Motorola will launch a mobile phone that runs Linux later this year, it said Thursday, introducing yet another software platform for mobile phones.

Handspring's Visor PDA makes its debut on local retail shelves Tuesday with the vendor announcing a distribution agreement with Vodafone Pty. Ltd.

Dell has released its first top-shelf laptop certified for Linux. Model CPxH500GT, part of the Latitude series of business laptops, runs Red Hat. When a top vendor starts including Linux laptops in one of its premier product lineups, it is a big step; Dell has also been fairly forward about bringing Linux to its full line of hardware.