It’s obvious that 2008 is the year of mobile Linux. Nokia announced today the acquisition of Trolltech, a lead company in Embedded Linux, for $153M. Nokia, major owner of Symbian, said that the acquisition will enable the company to accelerate its cross-platform software strategy for mobile devices and desktop applications, and develop its Internet services business.
“The technology landscape evolves and, for Nokia, software plays a major role in our growth strategy for devices, PCs and the integration with the Internet. We continue to focus on areas where we can differentiate and add more value. Common cross-platform layers on top of our software platforms attract innovation and enable Web 2.0 technologies in the mobile space,” said Kai Öistämö, Executive Vice President, Devices, Nokia. “Trolltech’s deep understanding of open source software and its strong technology assets will enable both Nokia and others to innovate on our device platforms while reducing time-to-market. This acquisition will also further increase the competitiveness of S60 and Series 40.”
A new challenge is awaiting Nokia and Symbian to keep its market share and possibly gain more in the current and next years. It was expected that a company such Motorola make the move to acquire Trolltech since it already use Qtopia for many of its handsets.
Nokia seems to be more interested into making SymbianOS better, not just introducing more Linux devices using Qt/embedded Trolltech technology. Trolltech is more ambitious to see their dream becoming true and that “Qt everywhere” won’t be just a slogan.
The question is, How will Symbian be affected by Trolltech purchase ?
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