Six leading mobile phone manufacturers are to jointly develop a new mobile platform ( see above ) for Symbian and Linux. The new venture aims to launch mobile phones with the new platform in 2012.

The new platform has yet to be named but will offer improved 3D graphic capabilities and greater processing power and speed.

The six companies involved are NTT DoCoMo, Renesas Electronics, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic Mobile and Sharp. This will allow the companies to reduce development costs and timescales associated with the design and implementation of handset features and applications.

The new platform will be offered to other mobile phone makers and compatibility with other operating systems is being considered e.g. Android.