Yesterday's news of Berlin-based Plazes getting consumed by Nokia was overshadowed today with news from a London press conference that Nokia will acquire the remaining 52% of Symbian it didn't already own for $410M. They then plan to follow the Android and LiMo for-free model, and offer Symbian as an open source mobile OS under the consortia management of the newly formed Symbian Foundation. Initial foundation members include AT&T, Broadcom, DoCoMo, Ericsson, Freescale, LG Electronics, Motorola, Orange, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.

With Symbian commanding 60% market share in the mobile OS smartphone space today, the move sends clear a message to Apple and Google... Nokia is in the fight for mindshare with developers and users in what I think we'll reminisce on 5 years from now as the true beginning of the mobile Web era.