Symroid is the Android Symbian Match Made Only in Heaven

Last week there was a buzz about Android and Symbian merging, first fueled by Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford’s statements on collaborating with Google and then a prediction by Jake Gold of J.Gold Associates that they will combine in as early as three to six months.

Symbian and Android both include Motorola and DoCoMo as members and want to unify the mobile Linux community behind a consistent interface that’s compatible across a wide variety of phones plus be available under an open-source license.

Poignantly Jason Devitt the CEO of Skydeck stated at the Mobile Web Wars Roundtable on Friday July 25th that, “The biggest challenge for Android is that it is totally dependent on hardware manufacturers and for the carriers to deliver.”

I, for one, would welcome this united front of open source mobile software along with LiMo versus the iPhone to recreate a similar scenario as the PC and Mac did in the previous 2 decades.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves to say this is likely to happen anytime soon since the capabilities of the systems are similar, but the APIs are extremely different.

It was Nigel Clifford that made the collaboration statements with Google NOT Nokia, which has taken over as the de facto owner of the Symbian Foundation, rendering Nigel a shell position and very likely within a lame duck status.

The prediction from Mr. Gold was also just that, as he replied to me in an email stating, “We have not cited any sources at either Symbian or Google for this report, as it is conjecture on our part, based on market analysis and what we believe should take place to advance the mobile market. That said, our analysis is, in my opinion, compelling.”

Nokia vice president, David Rivas, replied to this rumor stating that Nokia has “no plans” to combine Symbian with Android…at this time.

My feeling is Android first needs to prove itself on its own later this year into the next and then Nokia will evaluate where Symbian is and how they want to expand their handset reach before thinking about unifying the software stacks, especially if Android breaks into the China market.

What I do find interesting is that the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet can be easily setup with the Google Android operating system in about five minutes with these steps so maybe this is the start of Nokia eloping with Android and consummating in the future to become Symroid or Androbian.