Nokia announced on Friday it has acquired Novarra, a provider of a mobile browser and service platform. The Chicago-based company has around 100 employees and has been in business since 2000. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.As Nokia tries to maintain a solid position in the mobile device space, acquisitions like these make sense. Like other cellphone companies, it's been working on keeping up with the rise of the Apple iPhone. The company launched its own sort of App Store last year called the Ovi store. Similar to Apple, Nokia's Ovi is a platform where developers can build and sell applications, while Nokia takes a cut of the profits. Ovi also offers music and other media.
What's Nokia's plans for Novarra? The company said it would use Novarra's mobile browser and platform to deliver enhanced experiences on its devices. The Finland cellphone technology company plans to offer a new service using Novarra's platform later this year.
Novarra had raised around $50 million in venture capital and said it has deployed its solution with mobile operators and Internet services customers globally.
"Connecting the next billion consumers to the Internet will happen primarily on mobile devices...Novarra's Internet services technology delivered on the world's most widely-used mobile platform, Nokia's Series 40, will help us achieve this," commented Niklas Savander, Executive Vice President of Services at Nokia.
