Sony Ericsson has no plans for more Symbian OS devices, focusing on Android

In another stab against the Symbian mobile operating system, Sony Ericsson representative Aldo Liguori confirmed today that the company has no plans to develop future devices running Symbian, Bloomberg reports.

Sony Ericsson currently uses Symbian in its Vivaz line of phones, but the company has been shifting to Google’s Android operating system for some time. The Xperia X10, Sony Ericsson’s latest flagship device, runs Android — and now we know it won’t be the last device to do so.

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The company will remain a member of the Symbian Foundation — a non-profit organization that focuses on evangelizing and cross-manufacturer compatibility for Symbian. Sony Ericsson’s Android support is “not exclusive, but it will certainly continue to be an important platform for us,” Liguori said.

Symbian remains the biggest-selling smartphone OS worldwide because it’s heavily used by Nokia. All of Nokia’s latest devices, including the N8 smartphone, run the Symbian^3 OS. The company is also working together with Intel to develop an open-source operating system called Meego. Sources also tell VentureBeat that Nokia may be looking to adopt Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7.

Once Nokia begins to shift to Meego for its higher-end devices, and the iPhone and Android become even more entrenched, Symbian’s market dominance will likely suffer. Symbian’s global market share has already declined to 41.2 percent in the second quarter of this year, down from 51 percent a year earlier, according to market research firm Gartner.

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