Nokia has bought the remaining 52 per cent of shares in Symbian, a firm which creates operating systems for smart phones.

The mobile communications provider paid £209 million to secure the remaining chunk of the technology firm and has bought out shareholders such as Panasonic and Sony Ericsson.

Its attempts to secure a share of the rapidly growing mobile web market will face competition from Google and Apple, both of which offer their own mobile operating systems.

The Guardian notes that Symbian powers 235 different types of smart phone, which include Nokia handsets but not exclusively.

Commenting on the move by Nokia, the firm's executive vice-president Kai Oistamo said: "It will bring more innovative products to the market faster and [on the back of it] we hope to sell more phones and end to end devices," Mobile Today reports.

Also in the news this week, Nokia revealed it will purchase new social networking firm Plazes.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent)