Nokia said July 24 it has acquired Cellity, a German social networking software company that specializes in consolidating address management from different sources such as a cell phone address book, Outlook, and Twitter and other social networking services. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.
After the closing, Cellity’s 14-person staff will become part of Nokia’s Services unit and the Cellity service will be discontinued. Cellity’s current service will not transfer to Nokia.
“With this acquisition, we can accelerate our service development in some of our core areas,” Christof Hellmis, Nokia’s vice president of services, said in a statement.
Cellity’s free cell phone applications have already been downloaded more than 8 million times in over 160 countries and work with any mobile and SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card. Cellity Communicator provides the user with a wide range of communication features including classic telephony, conference calls, SMS (Short Message Service), mobile e-mail-forwarding, Twitter updates and communication in social networks.
“While we are thrilled by the new challenge of strengthening the Nokia team, this news has some implications [for] you, our valued customers,” Cellity stated on its Website. “We will begin ramping down our service, as both Nokia and Cellity have agreed that our current services will not transfer to Nokia.”
