Last year Nokia bought out its Symbian partners for $410 million and then adopted open source. But now according to analysts, apparently Linux may actually be Nokia's biggest bet, not open-source Symbian. Nokia says Symbian plays a central role in its software strategy, but analysts say the role of Linux in the company's Nokia phones is also set to increase. "We believe Nokia needs a more powerful mobile software platform to compete with the iPhone and similar products," said Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight, pointing to Linux as the likely candidate.

The idea seems to be that Symbian will be used for Nokia's mass-market phones, just as it is today, but Linux will power its more strategic bets. Nokia's head of software engineering, Ari Jaaksi recently blogged, "Nokia's vision is to bring open source and Linux to consumer mainstream." So perhaps Nokia has a bigger plan for Linux ......