RTZ Posted September 10, 2008 Share Posted September 10, 2008 I came across this little interesting tidbit today at BetaNews Introducing Nokia, the software company By Tim Conneally, BetaNews September 9, 2008, 5:23 PM As Nokia debuts new services and acquires yet more developers, we're beginning to see the global cell phone leader emerge as a fully-fledged software producer. This from a company whose executives had set its sights on the Internet. While its strategy to establish itself as a viable name in the Internet services field appears to be gaining a foothold, Nokia also appears -- if inadvertently -- to be attempting to trump Microsoft in the "unsellable name" department. Where Microsoft tends to have comically long and overcategorized product names (yesterday's announcement by Microsoft of "System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Enterprise Server Management License" immediately comes to mind), Nokia's nomenclature route has veered toward the nonsensical. Last week, the company premiered its Comes with Music store in the UK, and is scheduled today to officially launch its Files on Ovi cloud storage service, that has been in beta since July. Fortunately, the company has stuck to simple names for some of its strongest offerings: Nokia Maps, Sync (its calendar, contact, and task service), and N-Gage (its resurrected mobile gaming platform). Talk of the world's biggest mobile phone company beginning a deliberate transition into more of a software company began in the first weeks of 2008, when Nokia moved to acquire Trolltech and its patents for Qt and Qtopia, two popular cross-platform application frameworks. It wasn't until June that the acquisition received approval from the European Commission. Since last year, Nokia has acquired no less than ten companies in a broad spectrum of software and service-related fields, from mapping company Navteq to cloud storage startup Avvenu. Many of these became part of Nokia's online suite Ovi, which offers services not unlike those found in Windows Live Mobile, which is also available on Nokia devices. Recently, Nokia has shown interest in owning Symbian as it moves toward becoming a free, open mobile platform when the Symbian Foundation combines S60, UIQ, and MOAP(S). Google, on the other hand, has made well-publicized moves in a convergent direction. The search company has evolved from its roots in software to create at least the platform for its first open source mobile device. Earlier this year, analysts remarked that a search partnership between Nokia and Google was just another example of "coop-etition," where the two met eye-to-eye in search while locked in combat over open source mobile communications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldmannen Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 Yeah, the future for Nokia will be interesting. Acquired Trolltech who makes Qt, a widget toolkit with a very strong presence on Linux in among the KDE desktop environment. Nokia owns a big share in Symbian and buying out the rest and plan to open source it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capman Posted September 11, 2008 Share Posted September 11, 2008 Nokia rock, I have only owned Nokia phones since 1999, nothing else cuts it for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Predator Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 Yeah, the future for Nokia will be interesting. Acquired Trolltech who makes Qt, a widget toolkit with a very strong presence on Linux in among the KDE desktop environment. Nokia owns a big share in Symbian and buying out the rest and plan to open source it. Sounds interesting, a lot of company's seem to be interested in Open Source. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldmannen Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 Sounds interesting, a lot of company's seem to be interested in Open Source. Before the term "free software" was used, but it wasn't found appealing to the corporate world, hence the term "open source" were introduced which was much more appealing. Free open source software is growing and many companies are getting aware of the benefits it brings. Some companies still seem to be scared by it though, perhaps because it makes anti-competitive business practices such as vendor lock-in more difficult, so I guess to a big abusive monopoly or a cartel perhaps open source isn't perceived as good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Predator Posted September 12, 2008 Share Posted September 12, 2008 Sounds interesting, a lot of company's seem to be interested in Open Source. Before the term "free software" was used, but it wasn't found appealing to the corporate world, hence the term "open source" were introduced which was much more appealing. Free open source software is growing and many companies are getting aware of the benefits it brings. Some companies still seem to be scared by it though, perhaps because it makes anti-competitive business practices such as vendor lock-in more difficult, so I guess to a big abusive monopoly or a cartel perhaps open source isn't perceived as good. I suppose, but give it a few years I think people will see the quality in having anyone submit a modification or a fix for a problem in a piece of software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldmannen Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 I suppose, but give it a few years I think people will see the quality in having anyone submit a modification or a fix for a problem in a piece of software. Surely, many people see the advantage of open source. Such as having heterogeneous environments with mixed Windows, Linux and Mac workstations. Adapting software to current infrastructure and software stacks. Easily modifying software in-house, less dependence on vendors. Easy migration, etc. Many users see the benefit of open source and want it. But many developers don't want to make it open source, because they don't want users to have those benefits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Predator Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 I suppose, but give it a few years I think people will see the quality in having anyone submit a modification or a fix for a problem in a piece of software. Surely, many people see the advantage of open source. Such as having heterogeneous environments with mixed Windows, Linux and Mac workstations. Adapting software to current infrastructure and software stacks. Easily modifying software in-house, less dependence on vendors. Easy migration, etc. Many users see the benefit of open source and want it. But many developers don't want to make it open source, because they don't want users to have those benefits. Indeed. But if more people start to use it, it follows that more people are gonna want it IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eldmannen Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 I suppose, but give it a few years I think people will see the quality in having anyone submit a modification or a fix for a problem in a piece of software. Surely, many people see the advantage of open source. Such as having heterogeneous environments with mixed Windows, Linux and Mac workstations. Adapting software to current infrastructure and software stacks. Easily modifying software in-house, less dependence on vendors. Easy migration, etc. Many users see the benefit of open source and want it. But many developers don't want to make it open source, because they don't want users to have those benefits. Indeed. But if more people start to use it, it follows that more people are gonna want it IMO. Well the IT staff and management may see the benefits and then going to want it, because it allows them to cut down on licensing costs, gets them less dependent on vendors, and allows for in-house customization. So yeah, they will see benefits and would want it. For the average Joe Sixpack though, he is not likely to see the benefits or want it. He will use whatever comes shipped with the computer when he buys it at Best Buy, Walmart or whatever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Predator Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 I suppose, but give it a few years I think people will see the quality in having anyone submit a modification or a fix for a problem in a piece of software. Surely, many people see the advantage of open source. Such as having heterogeneous environments with mixed Windows, Linux and Mac workstations. Adapting software to current infrastructure and software stacks. Easily modifying software in-house, less dependence on vendors. Easy migration, etc. Many users see the benefit of open source and want it. But many developers don't want to make it open source, because they don't want users to have those benefits. Indeed. But if more people start to use it, it follows that more people are gonna want it IMO. Well the IT staff and management may see the benefits and then going to want it, because it allows them to cut down on licensing costs, gets them less dependent on vendors, and allows for in-house customization. So yeah, they will see benefits and would want it. For the average Joe Sixpack though, he is not likely to see the benefits or want it. He will use whatever comes shipped with the computer when he buys it at Best Buy, Walmart or whatever. I still have hope, its has too many pros IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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