Symbian opens Indian development subsidiary

Bangalore, India, 6th July, 2005 - Symbian Limited today announced the formal foundation of Symbian Software India Private Limited in Bangalore, India. Symbian develops and licenses Symbian OS™, the leading mobile operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones, also known as smartphones, to the world's leading handset manufacturers. By the end of Q1 2005, more than 32m Symbian OS-based mobile phones had been sold through more than 200 network operators worldwide.

This announcement signals Symbian's growing commitment to Symbian OS development in India. In 2003 Symbian established an Offshore Development Centre (ODC) in Bangalore, in partnership with MphasiS Technologies with a commitment to develop a Symbian-owned subsidiary by 2006. Symbian now has a 150-strong software development and engineering team based in Bangalore that complements the flexibility and strengths of Symbian's global software development activity. Symbian currently employs 1,000 software engineers worldwide.

Symbian intends to recruit in India during the second half of 2005 and beyond in order to expand its Bangalore development activities. The Bangalore development teams will focus on core Symbian OS and application technologies and product development to meet Symbian's growing customer and product requirements.

“Symbian is a global company with global customers who deliver cutting-edge mobile phones into markets worldwide. Symbian recognizes the need to take advantage of software development skills around the world. We have already had a very positive experience of working with Indian software development teams, so we are happy to deepen our commitment to India in order to work with the undoubted skills and expertise of the Indian software engineering community. Having a significant presence here in Bangalore brings Symbian one step closer towards having a globalized Symbian OS engineering base, enabling Symbian to meet its current business requirements and maintain its position as the global market leader,” said Joakim Nilehn, vice-president, deputy head of software engineering, Symbian.

“Symbian is a young and a dynamic company that addresses a very demanding customer base,” said Keith Porteous, general manager, Symbian India, Symbian. “By accessing the wealth of software engineering resources in Bangalore, Symbian is able to continue its focus on the best-in-class software development of Symbian OS for our customers.”