The more time that passes following Nokia's strategic alliance with Microsoft, the harder it is to pin down the Finnish firm's strategy when it comes to Symbian.

Suggestions by CEO Stephen Elop that a move to Windows Phone 7 is now Nokia's priority have been tempered with messages of support for Symbian, along with a commitment to carry on shipping devices running the OS for the foreseeable future.

Now, Nokia has announced it is to host an event promoting Symbian in Europe, but said revelation came just hours before it confirmed that it will no longer maintain the OS as an "open source development project".

Out in the open

"We have received questions about the use of words 'open', 'open source', and about having a registration process before allowing access to the code," said Nokia on its blog.

 

The post makes reference to an earlier entry where Symbian head Petra Söderling had confirmed that the platform was again "open" following some downtime following the reorganisation of the Symbian Foundation.

However, Nokia claims Söderling's comments simply meant Symbian was again open for business, rather than open source.

The entry continues, "As we have consistently said, Nokia is making the Symbian platform available under an alternative, open and direct model, to enable us to continue working with the remaining Japanese OEMs and the relatively small community of platform development collaborators we are already working with."

Symbian's futureEssentially, Nokia is in the process of working through existing registrations and "approving the aforementioned platform collaborators only", meaning newcomers looking to get a handle on the latest version of the platform are out of luck.

However, while Nokia appears to be calling time on certain elements of the OS, the firm is also simultaneously holding a new event designed to give it some fresh exposure.

Taking place on April 12 in London, Nokia has claimed the showcase will lay out "what's new with Symbian smartphones", presumably attempting to project a future for the platform, rather than detailing its expected demise.

Previous comments from Nokia have suggested Symbian will remain on its books for the rest of 2011, before 2012 signals a gradual, but eventually wholesale, move to Windows Phone 7.

[source: Nokia]