Posted on June 24, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy | Joint Ventures and Alliances
Tagged: Nokia , open-source , smartphone , Symbian Foundation

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Nokia Corp. is buying open-source mobile platform Symbian Ltd. for $412 million and making its technology available to manufacturers through what it calls the "Symbian Foundation." Companies will pay $1,500 to join the foundation, whose members will work to build a leading open-source mobile platform. Nokia's foundation partners are AT&T Inc., LG Electronics, Motorola Inc., NTT DoCoMo, Samsung Group, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, STMicroelectronics NV, Texas Instruments Inc. and Vodafone Group plc.

Because of Nokia's scale, CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo says the company "is strongly positioned to realize the benefits of open innovation, as well as accelerating time to market, enabling Nokia to meet and exceed consumer expectations for leading converged devices and experiences."

As TheDeal.com notes, Citigroup Inc. analysts suggest Nokia would be giving away a competitive advantage by offering its software to the foundation but that acceleration of smartphone penetration into lower price points will benefit Nokia more than its competitors, given its dominant share, scale advantages and ability to integrate Nokia-developed services across a broader range of devices.

Nokia plans to make the foundation-developed software free to everyone in two years. - Baz Hiralal

Go to the story from TheDeal.com
Nokia acquires Symbian to enable evolution of the leading open mobile platform
Go to the story from Reuters


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