Nokia spends €105m on mobile Linux developer

Finnish handset giant Nokia is buying mobile Linux developer Trolltech, in an all-cash deal valuing the company at about €105m.

Nokia is offering 16 Norwegian Kroner per share - about £1.47 - for the company. Trolltech shares were are up 56 per cent today at 15.6 Norwegian Kroner. Over 66 per cent of shareholders have already accepted the offer.

Trolltech's cross platform development software will help Nokia, and its partners, write applications which will run equally well on different mobile devices.

Kai Öistämö, Nokia's executive vice president of devices, said: “Trolltech’s deep understanding of open source software and its strong technology assets will enable both Nokia and others to innovate on our device platforms while reducing time-to-market. This acquisition will also further increase the competitiveness of S60 and Series 40."

Nokia said it would continue to develop Trolltech products and support new and existing customers.

Trolltech is based in Oslo in Norway, but also has offices in Beijing, China, Brisbane, Australia, Berlin and Munich in Germany and Redwood City in California. It floated on the Oslo Stock Exchange in 2006.

In the third quarter of 2007 Trolltech made revenues of 60.8m Norwegian Kroner(£5.6m) and Ebitda of 0.3m Norwegian Kroner (£27,000), driven mainly by development tools Qt and Qtopia.

The deal is subject to the usual regulatory and shareholder acceptance. ®