1) Fragmentation - Symbian operating system was not a complete product, which was one of the biggest misconceptions about the symbian OS. In very much simplified terms, Symbian OS is an Operating System Kernel and other end user companies had to build UI and SDK on top of it inorder to make use of it. Sony Ericsson and Motorola had their UIQ platform, while Nokia had Series 60 and NTT DoCoMo had MOAP(S). As a result, you could not run apps developed for Series 60 on UIQ and vice versa even though they were both based on the same version of Symbian kernel. Symbian OS was built by a London-based company Symbian Ltd. which started as a partnership between Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and Psion. Before it was fully acquired by Nokia, Symbian Ltd. was owned by Nokia, Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, Matsushita and Samsung.
2) Lack of focus - as a result of fragmentation of ownership it was hard for Symbian Ltd. to respond to changes in the market as dynamic as smartphones. It was owned by several companies, which resulted in slow decisions and execution. Nobody was betting 100% on Symbian. Even Nokia, the largest shareholder of Symbian Ltd., was experimenting with Linux via their Maemo efforts.
3) Strong competition - Apple and Google were simply stronger competitors and Nokia was not ready to respond. iPhone came out in June 2007 but Nokia consolidated Symbian only 18 months later in December 2008. By that time, even if Nokia would not have made its mistakes, it was too late to re-design Symbian OS.
All of the user-facing issues like clunky UI, AppStore and app development story were simply the result of the fragmentation and lack of focus.
Symbian OS had a solid architecture, great engineering systems and internal development tools. However, everyone - engineers, designers and management were reluctant to embrace change fast enough. Good bye, Symbian!
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