If one were to look at their actions over the past two days in a vacuum, you might think Nokia is really concerned about how things are lining up for them with Apple and Google entering a space they’ve dominated for years.
Yesterday they made a move to acquire their way into the LBS space with their Plazes acquisition and today, in what is a clear attack on the market Google is going after with Android, Nokia has acquired the remaining part of Symbian they didn’t already own with plans to take it all open source in the next two years (with certain components coming sooner).
This is potentially really big, particularly on the heels of the recent issues for Google/Android.
I certainly don’t think Android is going to be a non-factor by any means but Nokia’s doing a decent job “battening down the hatches” (something they had to do in my opinion) in preparation for Google’s inevitable launch (we hope) and Apple’s new presence. That being said, acquisitions aren’t always the easiest thing to work into a seamless consumer offering so a lot still remains to be seen but in case there was any doubt, it’s now officially on.
Om Malik has an excellent piece on how the landscape shakes out after Nokia’s recent move.
[...] of a whole day behind them, people have had the chance to take a long look (rather than a quick pass) at yesterday’s announcement and start to figure out how it’s going to affect the other [...]