EIB invests $630M in Symbian platform

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is backing the home team – namely, Nokia Corp.’s Symbian platform – with a hefty $630 million investment.
The long-term bank of the European Union announced a five-year loan to “part-finance” software research and research-and-development projects through 2011 in an effort to help Symbian-based smartphones compete with an ever-growing roster of high-profile platforms, including Apple Inc.’s iPhone, Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry and Google Inc.’s Android. The bankroll will also support the Symbian Foundation, Nokia said on its Web site, a recently announced initiative that aims to catalyze development of open-source software for the platform.
The announcement comes on the heels of an EIB study that found “Europe risks never being able to close its research gap with the United States if it cannot R&D investment in the servicers sector.” And the capital is welcome news for Symbian, which has long held a lead in the mobile-OS market but is increasingly threatened by well-heeled new players that increasingly are focused on mass-market users.
Article updated Feb. 24 to correct inaccurate information.