Nokia to adopt assets of Plazes

Nokia, the highly renowned company in the sphere of mobile communications in the international spectrum, along with Plazes declared of a new agreement that would enable Nokia to acquire the assets of Plazes entirely. It is to be noted that Plazes is a privately-owned start-up company and is comprised of 13 people with its principal operations in Berlin. Plazes excel in the sphere of providing a context-aware social-activity service which can be utilized by people, depending on their own whims, to plan, record, and share their social activities. This may be anything, for instance, let the friends know where you are at present along with your activity and where you can be at a specific time.

Commenting on this, Niklas Savander, Head of Nokia Services & Software said, "This acquisition helps Nokia to accelerate its vision of bringing people and places closer together, in line with our broader services strategy. In addition to the key assets, through this acquisition Nokia will bring on a visionary team with an advanced understanding of social-activity services, as well as the technical ability to further develop this area."

It has come to knowledge that the possession of Plazes will enable Nokia to amplify its context-based service offers with social presence and time-based activity planning features. In this context it should be accepted that Plazes, by means of its website and its innovative approaches, brought a unique notion to the international community. What is more Plazes by adding the elements of "place" and "time" to social networking through apposite features has benefited general people to a great extent. These features include letting people make their friends conscious of their own activities, retrospect their own and others' past activities, share their experiences and make plans with friends. The receivers or friends, after going through these efficacious communications, then become able to respond with their own advices along with their own location information.

Speaking on this Felix Petersen, co-founder of Plazes stated, "Nokia shares our vision of the social activity space and of how we can together develop the service that Plazes provides today. We feel proud of what the Plazes team has achieved so far with its pioneering work in context-aware services and we feel even more excited about what's to come next."

To the inner sources, this very agreement is subject to customary closing conditions and is also expected to close the third quarter 2008. Plazes will become part of Nokia's Services & Software unit in the period following closing.

Nokia, as already known to almost all, is a highly acclaimed name in the international business of cell phones. In respect of mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries it has already become unparalleled.