Nokia and Metrowerks Agree on Transfer of Application Development Technology to Nokia

Nokia and Metrowerks Agree on Transfer of Application Development Technology to Nokia "Licensing deal, reseller agreement and purchased assets enrich Nokia’s offering for the Symbian OS ecosystem and endorse Metrowerks core technology
Austin, Texas, September 8, 2004 - Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire a portfolio of applications development tools based on the Symbian Operating System and to license core development tool technologies from Metrowerks Corporation, an independent subsidiary of Freescale™ Semiconductor, Inc. (NYSE:FSL).
Upon completion of the acquisition, the development and support resources of the Metrowerks tools portfolio for the Symbian OS will be transitioned to Nokia. In addition, Nokia Inc. will make employment offers to approximately two-dozen Metrowerks employees, who are experts in these products. This will complement the acquisition by bringing in the skill set required to develop and support the portfolio. The employees will be located in a newly established Nokia Inc. office in Austin, Texas."

In fewer words, Motorola sold its Symbian tools group to Nokia (Motorola spun out Freescale in July, 2004; Motorola acquired Metrowerks in 1999).

The Register's take:
"... Nokia is likely to find itself accused of taking over the Symbian development process once again. The recent pre-emption process at Symbian showed that interest in the OS was healthy and broad, with several Symbian shareholders upping their stakes to prevent Nokia grabbing Psion's former Symbian stake in its entirety. But not only does Sony Ericsson base its Symbian work on a non-Nokia UI, Nokia's rivals are also keen to see that it isn't tilting the playing field its way. Today's press release studiously avoided placing the word "acquires" in the headline, but more diplomatic skills might be needed, too. Still, you never heard the accusation that Motorola was slanting it towards its own embedded platforms, so may be it will prove to be less of a wedge than its rivals hope."