Nokia to Acquire Trolltech to Accelerate…
January 30th, 2008
...Software Strategy. I couldnt resist using the title from the press release. Mathew Aslett has a nice summary of Nokias acquisition of Trolltech......for about $153M USD. Thedeal appears to be for ~4x 2007 estimated revenues of ~$40M USD.
Trolltech offers Qt for high-performance, cross-platform application development and Qtopia for mobile Linux devices. Trolltech utilize a dual license model. According to the , you can download their products under the GPL if Im Developing Open Source Software or a proprietary commercial version if Im Developing Commercial Software. It appears that the commercial versions have more capabilities than the OSS versions. Interestingly enough Trolltech does not offer support around the OSS versions. They are running a true product-based business model.
Interesting to see Nokia go down this route vs. Android. I guess Google couldnt really expect Nokia to run and hide at the sight of . The #2 & #3 handset providers behind Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, are members of the , which is behind Android.
Lets see if Nokia open sources the commercial versions of Qt and Qtopia in order to compete vs. Android. And if so, will ISVs jump for joy considering the risk of having to pick sides in the handset platform battle?
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