Nokia to acquire Trolltech!

The mobile world seems to be buzzing with energy! After Google announced its mobile platform Android, we have seen fusion reaction in this industry. Not to mention Apple’s iPhone platform. Android has ignited one of the furious wars that we will see. Nokia joins this competition with a big punch by acquiring the major cross-platform and embedded application framework provider: Trolltech!

Nokia, leader in mobility will pay NOK 16 per share in cash to acquire Trolltech. This will enable Nokia to accelerate its software strategy for mobile devices and complete with other players. The acquisition is not complete as its still subject to regulatory approval and final closure. It’s expected to complete by second quarter of this year.

Co-founder of Trolltech, Eirik Chambe-Eng said,

We are thrilled to join forces with Nokia. The company’s innovative culture and resources will give our employees new and exciting possibilities and fulfill our vision of "Qt everywhere".

And Nokia said this will increase the competitiveness of S60 and Series 40. So in short this is Nokia’s response to Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone. Trolltech (already part of LiMo foundation) along with Acrodea and Motorola is already a competitor of Android. The mobile industry is looking very competitive with Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone platform, Microsoft’s Mobile Windows, Palm’s Palm OS and finally Symbian’s Symbian OS.

Wrapper libraries for ExtJS

Ext JavaScript library, used for building rich internet applications has emerged as a popular and very vast library. The Ext team has recently released 2.0.1 which is a maintenance release and fixes lots of issues it predecessor had. Over time, developers around have created wrapper libraries to make Ext more developer friendly and easier.

Ext makes the complete use of JavaScript to build the rich application. The code to build a page at times becomes quite large (especially if you have lot of components). Using Ext in its raw form can be difficult if you are new to JavaScript. This is mainly because it difficult to debug the js code and Ext still lacks good tutorials. But I have come across many open-source projects that are aimed to make developer’s life easy. All these projects seem to be quite good and moving in positive direction.

ExtTLD: Ext library extension for java developers! You have all Ext components represented in the form of tags. All you have to do is add the TLD library, add JSTL support and Apache commons library to your project. The project is still in beta stage and is available for download. But I am not sure of the license in which this library will be distributed and its Tag source code is not available for download.

To test, I downloaded the library and was programming the next minute. The steps are simple and easy. Have a look at sample code:

<ext:body>
<ext:window title="Testing" width="300" height="300" id="myWindow">
<ext:toolbar>
<ext:toolbar.button text="Button 1" />
</ext:toolbar>
<div style="padding:5px">This is a simple window in Ext </div>
</ext:window>
</ext:body>

MyGWT: This is a java library for Google Web Toolkit. The library helps developer to compile their java code to web applications and has been licensed under LGPL 3.0. The library seems to have stable release but I am not sure if the library supports Ext 1.x or 2.0. The site has enough examples and tutorials to start you up.

Let’s change the platform. The above mentioned wrappers are related to java developers. What about .Net, Rails and ColdFusion developers? Wrapper libraries for these platforms are also available. For Microsoft platform we have Ext Extender controls which is hosted on CodePlex. For Rails we have library provided by GL Networks Inside. ColdFusion developers have two libraries Ext.CFC and cfExt.

I am Java guy and have not tested libraries for .Net and others. May be you should test them and comment about it. So, web developers... What are you waiting for? Checkout the libraries!!!

KDE becomes Cross-platform!

KDE one of the most used open-source desktop environment is going cross-platform. Phonon, which was developed by KDE community as a part of KDE 4.0 release. Now KDE community, with the help of Trolltech will be extending Phonon to all major desktop including Windows® and Mac® OS X.

The core KDE library, and some applications like KDEOffice,Amarok audio player are being ported. Windows KDE (still in starting stages) is available for download at KDE mirrors.

Trolltech's Qt® has been a high-performance, cross-platform software library available for both open-source and commercial developers. It is also the base library used by KDE. Initially only linux verion of Qt was available in GPL, but Trolltech has decided to make Windows version available under the GPL too with the introduction of Qt 4. With these changes, you will see KDEOffice and KDE PIM softwares on windows environment.

This appraoch of bringing KDE as a cross-platform is welcomed. But I am still doubt how effective this is going to be. Mac has one of the test UI and is much user friendly than any other environment will user accept a change from the default Mac OS UI to KDE? Another concern is will the linux adoption reduce if this "KDE adoption" become popular?

Sabeer Bhatia launches SabseBolo

The Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia has yet again launched an innovative product. He has announced the launch of India’s first free, reservation-less audio conferencing facility! The product is called SabSebolo and is in Alpha stage. But is it going to be another hit?

Definitely , the product is very innovative. Anybody can access the service and is available 24/7. The main advantage is there is no need of internet or any downloads. All; you have to do is log on to SabSebolo.com and enter your email id and password. Once you create an account you get your permanent conference id and a pin and you are ready to do conference call at any time.

To make a call you simply dial +91-22-3980 4444, enter the conference id and pin. You can have a maximum of 10 participants in the call. The service seems to absolutely free, but you will have to pay the phone charges for making the call (charges applicable as per your service provider). SabSebolo also has a paid service where in conference calls can be recorded and tracked. They also plan to release online tools for conferencing scheduler, conference manager, dial-out service, voice broadcast, voice telecast etc..

With the young generation using SMS as their main communication, will Bhatia pull this off? Will corporates take a taste of this service? Bhatia has presently introduced this only in India, but will be introducing the international version too.