From the speculation, through the confirmation of the Nokia-Microsoft partnership and until now there has always been one question that prevailed � what will happen to Symbian? We finally have an answer. An open letter from Vice President, Forum Nokia Purnima Kochikar to the Symbian development community indicates that the company has no intention of producing handsets running on Symbian beyond 2012.

Kochikar wrote in the letter:

I�ve been asked many times how long we will support Symbian and I�m sure for many of you it feels we have been avoiding the question. The truth is, it is very difficult to provide a single answer�We cannot give you the date when Symbian will no longer be supported. What I can promise you is that we will not just abandon Symbian users or developers�Our intention is that when users come to the end of the natural lifecycle of their Symbian device they will make the change to a Nokia Windows Phone device and so it would not be in our interests to undermine their Nokia smartphone experience.