Symbian, the mobile operating systems company, has appointed a new
chief executive as it fights to improve user take-up of its
system.
It emerged at the CEBIT show in Germany that Symbian had replaced
Colly Myers, who left in February, with Psion CEO David
Levin.
Despite being an early entrant into the mobile Internet market,
only a handful of smartphones use the Symbian operating system
Epoc. These include the Communicator series from Nokia and
Ericsson's R380 smartphone, but sales volumes are low.
Symbian, which led the field two years ago, now faces stiff
competition from the Palm operating system and Microsoft's Pocket
PC and Stinger alternatives.
The consortium has not been able to deliver products on time. Two
years ago at CEBIT it promised a tablet device equipped with voice
capability produced in partnership with Motorola, but this failed
to materialise.
Symbian at least has some powerful shareholders in the form of
Nokia, Ericsson, Panasonic, Sony and Psion.