Nokia Forms Open-Source Android OS Killer

Android hopefuls better look out. Another open-source operating system is on the prowl -- and it's a system that has more than 200 cellphones to its credit already.

Today, in a hugely unexpected move, the number one cellphone maker on the planet, Nokia(NOK), announced that it is buying the other half of operating system manufacturer Symbian -- and is taking it open-source. They currently own 48%.

That means that Nokia and new partners Motorola(MOT), Sharp, SonyEricsson(SNE), AT&T(T), Orange, LG, Samsung, NTT DoCoMo, Vodafone(VOD), Texas Instruments(TXN), Broadcom(BRCM) and others are joining forces to create a mobile operating system to put a major dent in the hopes of Google's(GOOG) Android -- or any other cellular OS you can think of.

Symbian is a British firm that used to be known as Psion, who made a terrific line of PDAs (remember PDAs?) in the late '80s and '90s. Ten years ago, they decided to stop creating hardware and spend all of their time perfecting mobile software. Nokia has been one of the major buyers of Symbian software.

For the record, in its 10 years of existence, Symbian's OS has been used on more than 200 million cellphones. That's 200 million, not the 10 million to 20 million handsets that some computer companies are hoping to sell this year. According to the numbers, the first 100 million Symbian-based phones took eight years. The next 100 million took less than two years.

Some Symbian phones are smartphones, while some of them are clever phones (fewer features). The operating system is that scalable.