In a shameless display of Scandanavian love, Nokia purchases Trolltech.

Nokia, the blonder-than-you 800-pound Finnish gorilla, has made itself a little acquisition this morning -- Trolltech, the Norwegian software house.

Why is this significant? Well, aside from owning the Qt technology at the heart of KDE, Trolltech also posesses Qtopia Phone Edition, a mostly-open-source linux-based OS for smartphones (sounds familiar).

It's hard not to see this as a response to Android. It is also, without doubt, a big win for Linux, as it seems more and more likely that Linus' open-source kernel is going to become the standard pillar on which the next generation of mobile devices stands.

Nokia has got itself a honey, here. Trolltech has some no-question open source cred, a robust and well-storied software chest, and a gaggle of open source developers already well acquainted with the Qt framework. Furthermore, Trolltech is a LiMo member and producers of their own open handset, the Greenphone, which is more a developer platform and a proof-of-concept than a viable real-world-use device, but is nonetheless cool. And all for a paltry $153 million? Good deal.

[via Engadget]