Nokia confirmed it is to buy the whole of Symbian it doesn't already own for 3.647 Euro a share.

That's 52 per cent and will cost, in cash, the tidy sum of 264 million Euro. But as part of the transaction it has already received 'irrevocable undertakings' from other interested parties, including Ericsson, Sony Ericsson and Panasonic for the sale to go ahead. Nokia also said it expected Samsung to agree to the transaction.

The firm said that Symbian is already the most important open platform for mobile devices, and according to market research firm Canalys owns around 60% of the converged mobile marketplace.

Over 200 million phones based on the Symbian OS have already shipped, said Nokia. The transaction is expected to be done and dusted by the end of this year. X