07 August 2009

Google Controls Nokia

Google just bought On2, international company developing multimedia codecs. On2 bought 2007 a Finnish company called Hantro, which has been delivering hardware and software video codecs for Nokia for years (here, here and here).

Yep, Google now owns an important piece of Nokia platform.

Officially On2 codecs will be used to make Android platform better - but isn't it a nice coincidence to get control over Nokia at the same time. Now Google knows all about Nokia multimedia hardware and software architecture, problems and solutions - not to mention roadmap for the forthcoming years.

What a "lucky break" for Android, Google owned and controlled mobile device platform seriously competing with Symbian OS (used mostly by Nokia). It's going to take Nokia a few years to get out of this situation. Fortunately there are several H.264 video codec chip manufacturers.

Congratulations! Someone has actually earned all the bonuses (s)he's going to get.