Sun Says No>
Sun Will Not Buy Stake in Symbian Venture
By Farah Nayeri at Bloomberg News
04 February 1999
Sun Microsystems Inc., a top maker of computers that run
Internet sites, will not buy an equity stake in Symbian, a
venture by the world's top three cellular phone makers, Nokia
Oyj, Motorola Inc. and Ericsson AB, Sun's chief executive
officer Scott McNealy said.
Symbian in the past has said Sun, NEC Corp. and Matsushita
Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. might take equity stakes of about 5
percent in Symbian. Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola hold 23.1
percent of Symbian, while Psion Plc, a U.K. computer maker,
holds 30.7%.
Sun is allowing Symbian to use Jini. If Sun took an equity
stake, however, Symbian's rivals might shun Sun in favor of
competing software proposed by Microsoft Corp. and Lucent
Technologies Inc.
"We are as wired in as we can be without owning equity," said
McNealy. "I'd rather support them like crazy without alienating
their competitors."
For Symbian, Sun's software Jini offers the possibility of
linking its so-called smart-phones to consumer electronics and
home computers.
Smart phones add computer functions like word processing
and Internet surfing to voice features.
Sun's shares fell 5 5/16, or 4.81%, to 105 3/16. Psion's shares
rose 23.5 pence to 952p, Nokia shares rose 0.80 euros to
121.80, Ericsson shares rose 3.5 kronas to 223.5. Motorola
shares fell 2 3/16 to 67 5/8.
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