Nokia 2008 Annual Report Download - page 39

Software
Software refers to both the platforms that enable the implementation of radio technologies and
applications in mobile devices, and the applications or services that run on a mobile device.
We deploy different software operating systems to allow us to balance usability, features and cost in
a flexible manner. These include Series 30, Series 40 and Maemo, all software platforms developed in
house; and S60, software built on Symbian OS, an operating system widely used by the industry. We
provide mobile devices for a wide range of market segments, price points and user groups, and by
having different software operating systems we are able to choose the right one for each Nokia
device. S60, which we use in our own devices and which is licensed to other device manufacturers, is
the world’s leading smartphone software platform.
In 2008, Nokia and industry partners took the first steps to develop Symbian OS, the marketleading
operating system for mobile devices, into an open and unified mobile software platform, which will
be licensed royaltyfree and eventually move towards ‘open source’. In December 2008, Nokia
acquired full ownership of Symbian Limited, the company that develops and licenses Symbian OS,
and, together with industry partners, initiated plans to establish the Symbian Foundation, an
independent, nonprofit entity to develop a unified platform with a single user interface framework.
The goal is for the Symbian Foundation to build on the appeal of Symbian OS and accelerate the
development of compelling webenabled applications.
The Symbian Foundation initially combines software assets contributed by Fujitsu, Motorola, Nokia,
NTT DoCoMo, and Sony Ericsson. By midFebruary 2009, more than 70 companies had announced their
endorsement of the plans to establish the foundation, including Nokia and the other initial board
members: AT&T, LG Electronics, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson, STEricsson, Texas
Instruments and Vodafone. The contributed software is to be made available to all foundation
members under a royaltyfree license from the foundation’s first day of operations, expected before
the end of the first half of 2009.
Key to our software strategy are crossplatform development environments, or layers of software that
run across different device operating systems. These layers enable developers with experience in a
variety of software environments to create applications for the mobile market. Our acquisition of
Trolltech in 2008 should enable us to accelerate our crossplatform software strategy for mobile
devices and desktop applications and develop our consumer Internet services business. Trolltech now
operates as Qt Software, taking its new name from its Qt technology that forms the basis for tens of
thousands of commercial and open source applications.
Research and Development
Since January 1, 2008 the bulk of our research and development activity has fallen within Research &
Development
, a subunit of our Devices unit. A smaller portion of our research and development
efforts falls within our Services unit, while longerterm technology development comes under the
scope of Nokia Research Center, a global network of research centers and laboratories Nokia
maintains, in many cases in collaboration with outside partners.
Nokia Research Center
Looking beyond the development of current products, services, platforms and technologies, our
corporate research center creates assets and competencies in technology areas that we believe will be
vital to our future success. In recent years, Nokia Research Center has been a contributor to almost
half of Nokia’s standard essential patents.
The center works closely with Nokia Devices & Services and Nokia Siemens Networks and collaborates
with several universities and research institutes around the globe. These include the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Stanford University in the United States, the University of Cambridge in
the United Kingdom, and Tsinghua University in China. Further expanding the scope of our longterm
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