The Rise and Fall of Symbian: The British Software That Ruled the World's Phones, Then Lost to Apple

Subscribe to the channel!! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsf3CdPzMBjoeEpTAb5Uvsw?sub_confirmation=1 In 2007, two out of every three smartphones sold on earth ran an operating system written by British engineers in London. It was called Symbian. It shipped on close to half a billion devices, it made Nokia one of the most valuable companies in the world, and by the first day of 2014 it had been completely erased by the company that owned it. This is the full story of how a defensive alliance between rival phone makers built the most successful mobile platform in history, why the qualities that made it dominant made it impossible to modernise, and how a single leaked memo in February 2011 turned a slow decline into a free fall in a matter of weeks. From the pocket organizers of 1980s London to the forty one megapixel funeral of the Nokia 808 PureView, this is the rise and fall of the software that ruled the world’s phones and then deleted its own future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_(company) https://www.nokia.com/about-us/company/our-history/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12427680 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/feb/09/nokia-burning-platform-memo Gartner, Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System, quarterly releases 2007 to 2012 Canalys, Smartphone Market Analysis, annual and quarterly releases 2010 to 2011 David Wood, Smartphones and Beyond: Lessons from the Remarkable Rise and Fall of Symbian, 2014 Nokia Corporation, Annual Report on Form 20-F, filings for financial years 2007 to 2013 Merina Salminen and Pekka Nykanen, Operation Elop: The Final Years of Nokia’s Mobile Phones You can contact me at: thefallenboardroom@proton.me This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.