Motorola Drops Symbian for Android

During its quarterly earnings call, Motorola’s Sanjay Jha, CEO of the Mobile Devices group, confirmed the rumors that his company will no longer develop phones running the Symbian OS and UIQ user interface, nor will it build any new phones that work on its proprietary Linux Java platform, which was formerly called JUIX.

Motorola will complete any devices on those two platforms that it has already committed to building, but moving forward will rely on Windows Mobile and Google’s Android for its mid-tier and high-end devices in an effort to reduce its R&D costs. It will use its P2K platform or ODM solutions for the low and very-low end markets.

Jha said that Windows Mobile and Android will be used for both consumer and enterprise devices, and that the company’s first Android powered device will not come to market until the holiday shopping season in 2009, a year from now.

Motorola also said that it is no longer expecting to spin off the Mobile Devices wing of Motorola in Q3 of 2009, as it had indicated earlier. It will, instead, take longer. The company would like to return to profitability first, considering the current economic climate.

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