Nokia and Trolltech ASA today announced that they have entered into an agreement that Nokia will make a public voluntary tender offer to acquire Trolltech.

Trolltech is the developer of the QTopia Linux phone platform. This acquisition could mean a very big push for Linux on mobile phones. I hope Nokia sees finally that there is no need for Symbian. Only desktop operating systems have a future on mobile phones. Apple and Microsoft "The technology landscape evolves and, for Nokia, software plays a major role in our growth strategy for devices, PCs and the integration with the Internet. We continue to focus on areas where we can differentiate and add more value. Common cross-platform layers on top of our software platforms attract innovation and enable Web 2.0 technologies in the mobile space," said Kai Öistämö, Executive Vice President, Devices, Nokia. "Trolltech's deep understanding of open source software and its strong technology assets will enable both Nokia and others to innovate on our device platforms while reducing time-to-market. This acquisition will also further increase the competitiveness of S60 and Series 40."
I do not know what the last sentence in this statement means in regards to Symbian OS. In any case it will take some time until Nokia moves a significant number of their upcoming phones to Linux. Enough time to see how users will adopt it.
Via this Nokia press-release.

Trolltech made some waves with ther open source developer mobile phone Greenphone last year.