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Nokia sharpens Vision with Novarra buy

Browser on board

Finnish phonemeaker Nokia has announced that it will acquire the privately-held, Chicago-based Novarra, makers of the Vision mobile browser and server platform.

"By driving innovation in all segments of our portfolio, we are building one of the largest consumer audiences for web services and content," said NokiaEVP for service Niklas Savander on Friday. "Novarra's Internet services technology delivered on the world's most widely-used mobile platform, Nokia's Series 40, will help us achieve this."

Nokia also noted that the company plans to make a "new service offering" based on Novarra technology available later this year.

The Finns may still control a huge chunk of the mobile-device market - the company claims that "Every day, more than 1.2 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia device" - but despite its favorably-reviewed flagship N900 smartphone, it's still playing catch-up in the battle against Apple, RIM, and Android devices in the lucrative high-end of the handset market.

With the acquisition of Novarra, however, Nokia is signalling that it's not conceding ground in that contest - and that it's moving forward despite any suit - countersuit distractions caused by its legal battles with the smartphone-mindset leader, Apple. ®

Latest Comments

Umm

The N900 does indeed bundle FireFox (renamed to MicroB)...

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N900 is not the flagship device

Of course the N900 is neither the flagship device (N97 is) or a smartphone, it's a mobile computer.

Now because it has a GSM chip for net access it can make and receive phone calls (and SMS) too, but it does not mean it's primary purpose is to be a phone (and based on the very basic phone functionality it definitely isn't, not that I care, I like the way it is...)

<joke>ps. MMS is for w*nkers</joke>

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Anonymous Coward

Opera pre-bundled?

Why Nokia doesn't get it over with and simply pre-bundle Opera Mini or Opera Mobile to have a world-class browser ASAP on every Nokia phone, is beyond me. They look slow & indecisive...the iPhone came out in June 2007...! Sheesh.

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walkermore

sounds good to me

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Transcoding the truth?

Anybody remember the chaos caused by Novarra in UK by deploying their snake oil?

http://eu.techcrunch.com/2007/09/21/vodafone-in-mobile-web-storm/

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