Potential Nokia N9 and N8-01 Symbian smartphones, along with a bunch of mid-range models will be sold for years to come.
Nokia is promising to ship new high-end Symbian smartphones in 2011, and Reuters reports that Nokia is reinforcing its commitment to its legacy Symbian smartphone platform during a technology conference today.
"We will of course utilize the long-tail of Symbian as long as it gives us profitable margin," Nokia's Chief Financial Officer Timo Ihamuotila told attendees at the UBS Technology Conference.
While Nokia will transition to Windows Phone technologically in 2011 and 2012, the Finnish giant expects to sell Symbian smartphones at full scale for a long time to come. "Sales of products have often lasted longer than expected in the mobile industry," the Nokia CFO said.
The Nokia CFO also said that the final contract with Microsoft has yet to be signed. Bloomberg yesterday reported that Microsoft will pay $1 billion plus a royalty fee per Windows Phone license sold to Windows OEMs for technology Nokia will contribute to the platform.
Given Nokia will receive a royalty fee per Windows Phone license sold to Windows Phone OEMs, the Finnish giant hopes that companies such as HTC, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson will place big bets on Windows Phone in the future. Meanwhile, Oracle is looking to collect a royalty fee from the same companies when it comes to usage of the Android platform, or more specifically the platform's Java-based Dalvik runtime environment.
While speaking of platforms, do you remember that all-touch MeeGo smartphone that was expected to appear during the Mobile World Congress? It turns out that it's the successor to the Nokia N900, called the Nokia N950. Obviously, this smartphone has been in the making for a long time, indicating that the Nokia N9, which first appeared running Symbian last summer, has been a Symbian smartphone all along, and could possibly be a Nokia N97 successor to be released later this year. The Nokia N8-01 is expected to be in the pipeline too.