According to a report by Register , the Symbian Foundation might be shut down soon. The Symbian Foundation is a non-profit body which “provides ,manages and unifies the Symbian platform for download and development.” In short, the foundation acts as an enabler but does not develop the platform themselves.Since Nokia is the only major manufacturer to still support Symbian, the importance of this separate entity seems to fade away. Samsung had recently quit the foundation and Sony Ericsson too has shelved it’s plans for a Symbian handset.
Symbian was initially formed by many mobile heavy weights including Nokia. Nokia then became a sole owner of Symbian after purchasing the stake from other partners. The Symbian Foundation open-sourced the project code to Members earlier this year.
The future of the Symbian Foundation and Symbian is certainly not clear as Nokia is cutting close 1800 jobs and trying to save costs. MeeGo is a 2011 affair.
Nokia also announced that it plans to combine Symbian^3 , ^4 efforts.