SAN DIEGO and LONDON, October 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. (QuIC) and the Symbian Foundation today announced that QuIC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, has joined the Symbian Foundation and has been appointed to the Symbian Foundation board of directors. QuIC will support the Symbian Foundation with active participation on the board of directors and each of the four councils that govern the development of the Symbian platform.

QuIC's charter is to focus on optimizing open source software for use with Qualcomm technology. QuIC brings to the Symbian Foundation a wealth of knowledge and expertise in open source and, as a Symbian Foundation board member, QuIC is committed to working with its fellow board members for Symbian's continued commercial success. QuIC joins wireless operators ATT, Vodafone and NTT DOCOMO; silicon providers ST Microelectronics NV and Texas Instruments; and handset manufacturers Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Nokia on the Symbian Foundation board.

The Symbian platform comprises a complete, open source mobile operating system, user interfaces, middleware and key mobile applications used in more than 300 million smartphone devices worldwide. It includes the critical software elements a manufacturer or operator needs to build a mobile device. Symbian was built for mobile and enables mobile developers to use open SDKs to create compelling mobile applications that take full advantage of all Symbian-based handsets.

QuIC joining the Symbian Foundation and the Symbian Foundation board demonstrates our commitment to provide expertise and to optimize technology with the Symbian platform, said Rob Chandhok, president of QuIC. High-level operating systems offer the potential to unleash tremendous innovation and we are excited to help advance that process on the Symbian platform. Working as part of the Symbian Foundation, QuIC looks forward to participating in technology innovation in areas such as multi-core CPU support, Web browser and application enhancement, and CDMA and LTE support.

The Symbian Foundation welcomes QuIC, whose membership and board participation brings us significant wireless technology expertise and whose leadership will act as an important catalyst for the growth of the Symbian ecosystem, said Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation. On behalf of the Symbian Foundation board, we look forward to collaboratively evolving and rapidly expanding the Symbian open source software platform with QuIC.

About Symbian Foundation Ltd.

The Symbian Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to enable an open ecosystem that collaborates to create the most complete and richest user experiences for mobile devices. Symbian maintains the code for an open source software platform based on Symbian OS and software assets contributed by Nokia, NTT DOCOMO and Sony Ericsson, including the S60 and MOAP(S) user interfaces. Portions of the platform's source code have already been moved to open source under the Eclipse Public License. By mid-2010 this process will be complete, making the platform code available to all for free.

The foundation software licensing model and governance structure has been designed to secure transparency, encourage contribution and maintain platform consistency. The foundation promotes collaboration, contributions and active participation, and operates as a meritocracy.

The Symbian Foundation now occupies offices in the U.K. (London), U.S. (Foster City), Japan (Tokyo) and Finland (Helsinki), and will soon have a regional operation in China (Beijing). For more information please visit www.symbian.org and blog.symbian.org.

About the Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc.

Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, focused on enabling and optimizing open source software for use with Qualcomm technology. The company is focused on technical innovations to mobile open source software that leverage the unique capabilities of today's mobile devices, with a particular eye to optimizing platforms and the applications that run on them via tight hardware integration.

Symbian Foundation is a registered trademark of Symbian Foundation Inc. Qualcomm is a registered trademark of Qualcomm Incorporated. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Qualcomm Innovation Center Contact: Jeremy James, Seismic Marketing +1-858-451-5589 quicpublicrelations@quicinc.com Symbian Foundation Contacts: US: June Parina, Sparkpr +1-415-321-1872 june@sparkpr.com UK/Europe: Katie Buckett, Brands2Life +44-20-7592-1200 katie.buckett@brands2life.com

SOURCE: Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc.; Symbian Foundation Ltd.

CONTACT: Jeremy James of Seismic Marketing, +1-858-451-5589,quicpublicrelations@quicinc.com, for Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc.; orUS, June Parina of Sparkpr, +1-415-321-1872, june@sparkpr.com; orUK/Europe, Katie Buckett of Brands2Life, +44-20-7592-1200,katie.buckett@brands2life.com, both for Symbian Foundation Ltd.