Nokia today announced that it has started the process of purchasing Psion's shares in Symbian. Symbian, owned by a core group of mobile industry players with its independent governance structure, will continue to pursue its fair and non-discriminatory licensing business of the standards-based Symbian operating system (OS).

In order to acquire the Psion shares, Nokia will pay 173 million US for the Psion shares, plus a royalty of around $1.56 per Symbian unit sold in the next two years. It is estimated that the royalty fee will add about 100 million dollars to the value of the deal.

Nokia says they are determined to make further investment to support Symbian's long-term success in the increasingly competitive wireless OS market. The decision to acquire Psion's shares in Symbian is based on Nokia's confidence in the Symbian OS as a core platform technology for advanced mobile devices.