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Nokia buys turnkey OS outfit Smarterphone for undisclosed sum

Blurring the feature-smartphone gap

Nokia buys turnkey OS outfit Smarterphone for undisclosed sum
In the wake of Nokia and Microsoft's Lumia-shaped partnership, it's easy to forget that Nokia still has its finger firmly in the feature phone pie.

Evidence of this fact comes in the form of a buyout by the Finnish company of Norway-based outfit Smarterphone.

Based in Oslo, it's a company geared towards making feature phones work more like smartphones, thanks to its Smarterphone operating system. It's optimised for phones in the $25 to $75 price segment.

High end your low end

No figures have been released as of yet, though investor Ferd Capital has released a statement to confirm the deal. It had apparently invested €6.5 million in Smarterphone since 2007.

The deal actually closed in November 2011.


"Egil Kvaleberg [of Smarterphone] is a world class software architect and founder," reads the statement from Annar Bohn, investment manager at Ferd Capital.

"His internationally recruited and unique team situated in Oslo has created an operating system for lower end mobile phone that provides highly advanced functionality on very moderate hardware.

"Our belief in the team, technology and the long term market for feature phones remains firm, and we believe the company has now found a fantastic new home with Nokia."

It's not clear exactly what Nokia plans to do with Smarterphone, but we assume its smarts will diffuse through the company's strategy for developing markets in Africa and Asia.

You can find out more about Smarterphone via its website.

[source: Ferd Capital]

When Matt was 7 years old he didn't write to Santa like the other little boys and girls. He wrote to Mario. When the rotund plumber replied, Matt's dedication to a life of gaming was established. Like an otaku David Carradine, he wandered the planet until becoming a writer at Pocket Gamer.