Nokia acquires Trolltech -- the biggest little company you've never heard of

In a move meant to bolster its software development prowess, Nokia just announced the acquisition Trolltech. Who's Trolltech? Well, its software can be found in some 10 million devices. In fact, Trolltech's Qt is used by such familiar applications as Skype, Google Earth, and Photoshop Elements while their Qtopia was spotted on a hacked Archos 5 series earlier this month. By acquiring Trolltech's software development frameworks and application platforms, Nokia hopes to help developers create Internet applications that work on PCs and across Nokia devices. Specifically, Nokia claims that the move will "further increase the competitiveness of S60 and Series 40." The deal also grandfathers Nokia into the LiMo Foundation and its attempt to bring open-source to your handset. Hear that Android? The $153 million offer must still be processed through regulatory channels and approved by shareholders -- all expected before June in out.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 28th 2008 5:29AM]

This is in response to the fact that Nokia, despite being at 40% market share is in trouble. As I just blogged (see link below) The handset market is shifting almost entirely to a software market and symbian just doesnt cut it. I think, despite Nokia's seeming success, without radical action, Android, OS X, and even windows mobile will hurt them.

Blog link:
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/01/end-of-feature-phone-market-shifting.html

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 28th 2008 6:30AM]

I don't really like how you advertise your blog but I absolutely agree with the fact that Symbian is a pain in the ass to program.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 28th 2008 7:03AM]

LH,

Would you prefer that I paste the whole article here, or do you just think that the ideas are not worth sharing?

I am fairly new to blogging, but from all the people I have spoken to, and everything I have read, commenting on peoples blogs with links to more complete comments is the essence of blog conversation.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 28th 2008 8:52AM]

Nokia knows Symbian doesn't cut it. That's why they've been building up a Linux platform (Maemo) for the last few years.

This isn't a major shift for Nokia, it's adding to an already building tool set for them.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 28th 2008 8:22AM]

""The primary issue is they are not usable. The best proof of this is that in 6 months the iPhone has become the leading mobile browser."
You are talking about North America where Nokia has 4-5% market share....
I dont see any problems thought if there is problem it is no doubt OS that they need to work.
S60 3th edition sf2 seems really good and brings much needed eye candy and almost next to that will be released the first s60 touch(s60 5th edition and will support all apps of s60 3th edition)) that btw will be used in non touch devices too and by then i dont see any problems of Nokia holding it's control in smartphones.

OS X is amazing, but Apple aint going to make real portfolio of phones(at least 3-6 phones in a year)and so it wont be a threat for big players globally you need to remember that iphone made the impact in USA and Nokia dosent have anything exept one N series device that has American 3G and it's not selling in any carrier so OS X is eating Windows.

Android is totally a different story this will be a big player in future and who knows if Nokia jumps in, but it wont be easy as Nokia owns 49% of Symbian.

Symbian will stay number one in the future, but Android will eat some if it's market share and Windows keeps sucking. Smartphone market will be bigger by then too so i'm sure they(Android and Symbian) will do good.

You can go and say these things in European forum and you will see how stongly they feel about Symbian. Try example Mobile-Review. Symbian has(Nokia)enough of brand power to keep it number one for some time even if they produced shit that s60 almost is now, but the current s60 is also living it's last days new os that i talked above might be present already in the next and N and E series phones that are coming in 3GSM."

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 28th 2008 5:36PM]

Here's hoping they don't tank KDE 4.0 application development by messing around with the licenses of Trolltech's QT SDK.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 3rd 2008 10:02PM]

@hank

"Please note that gratuitous links to your site are viewed as spam and may result in removed comments."

On individual blogs you can do that, but on major ones like Engadget that are as much a news site as anything else, it's generally not a good idea.