Nokia has today announced two strategic acquisitions that will help it fend off the challenge from the Apple iPhone and Google’s upcoming Android operating system.
The major acquisition is of the final 52 percent of Symbian Ltd for £209m. Nokia already owned 48 percent of the company but has made a clear statement of intent by buying the further shares today.
Nokia is partnering with a range of companies to launch the Symbian Foundation, an open source model for the Symbian wireless operating system.
In a statement Nokia chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said:
“This will drive the development of new and compelling, web-enabled applications to delight a new generation of consumers. The wide support for this initiative, uniting the industry around the Symbian platform, reflects the strong gravitational pull it has for application developers”
This certainly seems a good deal for Nokia, who pay Symbian over $200m every year in license fees already. A buyout for $400m is clearly a good deal for the company.
As well as Symbian Nokia has also completed a takeover of German start-up Plazes which offers location-based social networking services across the globe. Users can manually geotag WiFi hotspots and then communicate with nearby friends or share location based experiences such as photos and videos online.
According to the press release Nokia will be able to extend its context-based service offering with social presence and time-based activity planning features. Plazes adds the elements of “place” and “time” to social networking through features that allow people to alert friends of their activity and location; review their own and others’ past activities; share their experiences and make plans with friends, who are then able to respond with comments and suggestions as well as their own location information.
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