15 February 2002 Symbian CEO Colly Myers has unexpectedly stepped down. Chairman David Potter – founder of Symbian’s biggest shareholder Psion – has taken over as interim executive chairman until a new CEO for the embedded operating system developer is found.

No explanation was given for Myers’ departure. “On behalf of the Symbian board, I would like to thank Colly Myers for the remarkable job he has done in nurturing the company to its current position,” said Koki Suda, a director and member of the Symbian board.

The departure of Myers comes just weeks after Symbian secured a further £20.75 million (€33m) in extra funding from its backers. However, Symbian’s long-term future has been surrounded by uncertainty as a result of the delay in rolling out third generation mobile telephone networks.

Symbian was expected to supply the operating system of choice for the new range of mobile phones and other mobile devices that would take advantage of the new mobile networks data communication features. The delay has given competitors such as Microsoft an opportunity to catch up.

London-based Symbian was spun out of handheld computer maker Psion in 1998, with most of the world’s major mobile phone makers – Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Sony and Matsushita – taking shares and investing money in the company.