Nokia has announced that it inends to halt shipments of its Symbian operating system (OS) powered smartphones during summer 2013 and will rely on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software.
The Finnish mobile firm will lay to rest to the homegrown smartphone platform, which ruled the global mobile operating system market prior to launch of Apple’s iPhone.
Nokia was cited by The Financial Times as saying that it took 22 months to get a Symbian phone out of the door.
"With Windows Phone, it is less than a year," the Finnish firm said.
"We spend less time having to tinker with deep-lying code and more time on crafting elements of the experience that make a big difference, such as around photography, maps, music and apps in general."
Nokia’s last new Symbian device developed was the 808 PureView and it has been a year since the Finnish firm launched a new Symbian device.
The move also follows deteriorating sales of the Symbian phones with only 500,000 units sold during the Q1 of 2013, compared to 5.6 million Windows-based Lumia phones sold during the corresponding period.
Reports claim that Nokia would not officially reveal the matter as it still has stock of Zambian hardware at several parts of the world.
Nokia is still considering producing cheaper phones that deploy its proprietary OS.
