Nokia Gets Cross Platform Support

Nokia has acquired Trolltech, a development platform for applications that can run on the Internet, accessed from a PC or a mobile phone. That might mean support for applications that run across operating systems, for example. The acquisition illustrates a couple of trends.

Mobiles need to acquire the ability to run Web applications, and need to do so in ways that are similar to the use of those apps on a PC, so users don't have to relearn a behavior. Cross-platform support also means Nokia can benefit from the huge numbers of developers working in the C, Flash, Java and other environments, for example.