Smartphone operating system Symbian has launched a new partner programme aimed at stimulating third-party development on the platform. In a statement, Symbian said that companies could join the new Symbian Partner Network – or SPN – at the reduced rate of US$1,500 a year and would be able to access a range of technical, marketing and business development tools and resources, including the Symbian OS Binary Access Kit. It said the SPN was aimed at “further strengthening the Symbian ecosystem by helping its members and customers to build compelling devices and solutions more quickly and at a lower cost.”

Symbian was fully-acquired by Nokia last month in a strategy designed to create an open-source mobile platform that could compete with rivals such as Google’s ‘Android.’ The new partner network will sit alongside the newly-formed Symbian Foundation, which brings together Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T, LG, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone in a collaboration on a new, royalty-free open software platform for mobile devices. The Foundation is expected to be operational by the first half of next year and will combine the Symbian OS, S60, UIQ and MOAP operating systems.