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By Heather McLean, 15 March 2002 17:10

NEWS Symbian's new CEO will face a tough battle to maintain its mobile operating system's market share against Microsoft's advances into the industry. David Levin is set to leave his role at troubled Psion - one of the companies with a large stake in Symbian - to take over the helm at the software company on 8 April. However, Nomura Bank mobile analyst Keith Woolcock said the move is going to be difficult for Levin to manage. He told silicon.com: "Symbian is going to really struggle against Microsoft. Levin has the labours of Hercules ahead of him as he's got to balance the interest of the company's five investors - who are all competitors - while convincing independent software developers to dedicate resources to the system that won't come into its own till 3G is up and running." However, Michelle de Lussanet, telecoms analyst at Forrester Research, was more upbeat about Levin's chances. "The man comes with a lot of industry experience, and scars can do you good," he added, referring to Psion's massive losses last year. Symbian is jointly owned by major mobile companies - Ericsson, Nokia, Matsushita, Motorola and Psion - which will create massive problems for Levin as Microsoft moves in, Woolcock said. Symbian's downfall has been heralded by the advent of Nokia's success, he added. "Nokia has terrified Symbian's biggest customers as it looks like it wants to dominate the consumer market. Microsoft has used that space to drive in a wedge in the form of its .Net deal with Deutsche Telekom." Woolcock said Microsoft's recent deal with Deutsche Telekom will see the German operator's corporate and consumer customers using Microsoft's system on their phones. He said mm02 is following suit and that Vodafone will announce a similar Microsoft deal this year, whereas Symbian will not be making huge money until the end of the decade when 3G is fully up and running. Lussanet added that Microsoft's competitive stance is not a bad thing: "Microsoft would love to control and dominate a large part of the mobile industry but a company coming specifically from a mobile background does have an advantage."