Nokia scoops up Smarterphone, now has another mobile OS to deal with

As if Nokia needed yet another mobile operating system to deal with, the company has purchased Norwegian company Smarterphone, creator of an operating system that brings smartphone-like features to basic cellphones.

The acquisition was actually completed back in November, but today it was made public by Smarterphone investor Ferd Capital, which put 6.5 million euros (about $8.3 million) into the company since 2007.

Given Smarterphone’s target market of dumbphones (pretty much anything that’s not a … Continue Reading

Apps for occupiers make organizing, communicating and sharing easier

The smartphone has been at the center of the Occupy Wall Street movement, just as it has played a pivotal role in the Arab Spring. And while the cameras in phones have recorded some of the movement’s most searing images, a growing number of apps are helping protest participants communicate and coordinate with one another.

Occupy Wall Street encampments across the U.S. have been dismantled by police actions, and as cold weather sets in, the … Continue Reading

Ouch: Nokia to cut another 3,500 jobs

Nokia plans to drastically reduce its workforce by another 3,500 positions, the company announced today.

The slashed jobs will be added to the 4,000 jobs Nokia already announced it would cut in April. At that time, Nokia said it would cut 4,000 positions by the end of 2012 and transfer 3,000 jobs to Accenture.

Nokia is in the midst of a major transformation led by CEO Stephen Elop in which the company is significantly cutting … Continue Reading

Delicious Android Ice Cream Sandwich images leak online

Several images of the latest unreleased version of Android—code named Ice Cream Sandwich—leaked online Thursday evening, giving smartphone fans their first glimpse at the operating system’s new style and features.

Google did not immediately respond with any confirmation of the photos’ authenticity.

Because Android is the number one smartphone OS in the world, with 43.4 percent of the smartphone market by market share, many people can’t wait to see what Google has in store with … Continue Reading

Nokia gives up on (weak) North America Symbian business, no N9 either

We’ve known this was coming for a while since Nokia jumped ship to Windows Phone 7, but today the company confirmed that it will be out of the Symbian phone business in North America once its new flagship Windows Phone devices launch this fall, All Things Digital reports.

But really, that’s like saying Nokia has decided to stop stabbing itself in the eye.

The whole point of jumping to Microsoft’s platform was that Nokia would … Continue Reading

Nokia defeats Apple in major patent dispute

Nokia on Tuesday announced that Apple had agreed to pay a one-time settlement and continuous license fees for patents that Nokia owns, ending a legal battle that started in 2009. Both companies will also retract all prior complaints from the U.S. International Trade Commission.

“We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees,” said Stephen Elop, president and CEO of Nokia, in a statement. “This settlement demonstrates Nokia’s industry leading … Continue Reading

Mobile enterprise security vendor MobileIron raises $20M

MobileIron just announced that it has raised $20 million in growth capital to accelerate global growth. The company creates mobile device management and security tools for enterprise systems.

The financing round included MobileIron’s current investors Foundation Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Storm Ventures. The funding will be used to drive global growth and accelerate initiatives for existing and emerging mobile platforms.

MobileIron has products for Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Phone operating … Continue Reading

Nokia cuts 4,000 jobs worldwide, reorganizes R&D sites

Nokia announced today that it will cut its workforce by 4,000 employees by the end of year 2012. The majority of the reductions will be made in Nokia’s home country Finland, Denmark and in the UK. Nokia will also refocus its research and development operations.

The cuts are a part of Nokia’s restructuring as the company decided to switch from Symbian to Windows Phone as its primary smartphone operating system, a deal led by new … Continue Reading

Sibblingz's Spaceport may be Holy Grail for publishing cross-platform games

Game startup Sibblingz is announcing today that its cloud-based Spaceport technology will allow a developer to write a social game that can be played on just about any smartphone, on Facebook, or a web site.

The new automated social game platform overcomes major problems that have plagued past attempts to tailor universal game development platforms, said Peter Relan, chairman of YouWeb, the parent company of Sibblingz. If it works, it could save developers a lot … Continue Reading

Nokia hurdles: speed, accountability, and laziness

When Nokia CEO Stephen Elop joined the company last year and led it to partner with Microsoft, we knew it would be difficult for him to reshape the mobile giant into a worthy competitor against Apple and Google.

Now we have a better sense of what Elop (pictured) faces at Nokia, thanks to a Bloomberg report from this morning, and it all seems to come down to speed, accountability, and laziness.

Speed: Every flagship … Continue Reading

Nokia releasing yet another cheap Symbian smartphone

Nokia announced today that it is launching the Nokia Astound in the United States, a low-end smartphone geared toward first-time smartphone owners running the company’s Symbian mobile operating system.

The device is purposely built with slightly weaker technical specifications — including a 620 megahertz processor (compared to 1 gigahertz dual-core processors in most phones today) and around 300 megabytes of memory (compared to 512 megabytes in most phones), according to Nokia representatives. It keeps the … Continue Reading

Another Symbian blow: Nokia sells off business side of Qt development framework

If you need more proof that Nokia is looking to rid itself of the Symbian mobile operating system, here it is: The company announced today that it will sell parts of its Qt development framework, which was initially billed as a way to easily create apps for Symbian and other platforms, to Digia, a Finnish software company. Digia buys the software licensing and professional service business from Nokia. Nokia will still be in charge of … Continue Reading

Protesting Nokia shareholders give up after facing cold hard reality (update: all a hoax)

Update: Well it turns out the Nokia “Plan B” investors were a hoax all along by one very bored engineer “who really likes his iPhone.” Our hearts go out to all the Nokia fanatics who thought they had investor support.
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Nokia’s new partnership with Microsoft is an exciting, but risky, attempt to rejuvenate an ailing company. So of course, stubborn young Nokia stockholders — who for some reason didn’t see any reason to … Continue Reading

Nokia’s Windows Phone 7 concept devices look like sexy beasts

As expected, the combination of Nokia’s hardware expertise and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 software looks promising.

The concept picture, which was first published by Engadget yesterday, may not end up looking anything like what Nokia finally delivers, but it gives us a good sense of what the company is aiming for in its new partnership with Microsoft.

The hardware design looks like a clear evolution of Nokia’s current N8 and E7 smartphones, except with more … Continue Reading

Nokia workers walk out to protest Microsoft deal

More than 1,000 Nokia employees have walked out of the company’s offices to protest the just-announced deal between Microsoft and the mobile handset giant, according to a report in Finnish newspaper Helsingin Santomat.

You can read an English version of the story here, courtesy of Google Translate. The walkout occurred at Nokia’s Tampere offices in Finland, where about 1,500 of the nearly 3,000 employees work on the Symbian operating system — the same operating system … Continue Reading

Nokia jumps to Microsoft's Windows Phone 7

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced a long-rumored partnership with Microsoft this morning that would make Windows Phone 7 Nokia’s primary mobile platform.

The announcement means the end is near for Nokia’s aging Symbian platform, which many (myself included) have criticized as being too archaic to compete with modern platforms like the iPhone OS or Android. And Nokia’s homegrown next-generation OS, MeeGo, will no longer be the mythical savior for the Finnish company, as it’s now … Continue Reading

Nokia CEO prepares troops to jump into the unknown — AKA Microsoft (Updated)

Update: A recent tweet by Google’s Vic Gundotra pretty much rules out an Android/Nokia partnership. Now Nokia has no choice but to partner with Microsoft.
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“We … are standing on a ‘burning platform,’ and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour,” Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop (pictured right) wrote in an infamous memo that’s been making the rounds among news sites today.

The memo, which clocks in at 1,300 … Continue Reading