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It's not even close to as splashy as the recent $8.1 billion acquisition of digital mapmaker Navteq Corp., but Nokia Oyj's [NOK] announced purchase on Monday of Norwegian software maker Trolltech ASA is one of those deals that seems to be more significant than the $154 million purchase price might suggest.
Officially, Nokia said that the deal will help advance its cross-platform software strategy for mobile devices and desktop applications. Nokia, best known as a cell-phone maker, has been putting increased focus on software for some time through deals such as its 2005 purchase of Intellisync Inc. and just earlier this month its acquisition of the subscriber data firm Apertio Ltd. In one sense these deals all address different parts of the mobile market; what connects them all is their aim in providing a simpler user experience.
This commentary from ZDNet fills in some of the backstory on why the Trolltech purchase may turn out to be a big deal. It notes that Trolltech earlier this month joined the LiMo mobile consortium aimed at building an open-source platform for handsets based on Linux, which is also a competitor to Google Inc.'s [GOOG] Android project. - Andrea Orr
See Jan. 28 announcement from Nokia
See November 2005 story from Tech Confidential
See Jan. 2 post from Tech Confidential
See Jan. 28 post from ZDNet
