Nokia, in a response to the iPhone and the impending launch of Android, decided to create the Symbian Foundation to “provide, manage and unify the platform, ultimately releasing it as open source.” Symbian is one of the most widely used operating system for feature phones (60% of the market). Sounds smart? I thought so too.

The only problem is that Nokia doesn’t ‘get it’. The Symbian source will be ‘open’ only to members of the ‘club’ until 2011. Members must pay yearly dues of $1,500. Of course this is no big deal for AT&T, LG, Motorola or NTT – it is a big deal for kids like Jeffrey Grossman, a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon who created Movies.app and sold it to Flixster.  $1,500 might just be enough to scare Jeffrey away.  Young, passionate developers are what makes the iPhone and G1 interesting.

Google figured out VERY quickly that it would be a good idea to come up with a way to PAY developers for creating applications on Android – $10MM for developers in the ADC I&II.  How many apps would have been ready for the G1 launch if Google had required developers to pay $1,500 to access their SDK?

If I was Apple or Google I wouldn’t spend much time worrying about Symbian – developers shouldn’t bother either…