Discussed on this morning's call…
Nokia has agreed to acquire Trolltech for about $150 milion. Trolltech makes cross platform tools for developing graphical applications. It's flagship product Qt allows you to develop software for Windows, Java, and Linux. QTopia is a graphical platform for Linux. Companies like Skype, Adobe and Google uses these technologies today. Nokia competitor Motorola uses QTopia in many of it's smartphone handsets as well. According to the Q&A that accompanied the release, the key driver for the acquisition is Nokia's desire for cross platform development. Nokia said "Trolltech’s technology will enable Nokia and third parties to develop software across platforms easier and more cost effectively; this speeds up innovation and brings new experiences to Nokia's device portfolio and onto PCs."
TweetMeme. This is the service that launched yesterday which aggregates trends across "Twitter Space".
Ribbit's Amphibian project. Amphibian is a consumer telephony application the marries the web and the handset. It sports features like visual voice mail, drag and drop call routing, and something they've called Caller ID 2.0, which fetches information about callers from the social network, as the call is coming in. It's also extensible by third parties. From where I sit, this is a tremendously ambitious project. We talk about what it will take for it to succeed.
Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD. At CES it looked like HD-DVD was going the way of the DoDo. Just yesterday, though, news broke that the HD-DVD vendors will have huge ads at the superbowl, and Blu-Ray won't. They've also got aggressive pricing on players, and the price of the movies have dropped recently. Dead man walking? Or will this Zombie accomplish the miraculous and rise from the dead?
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
