Nokia & Open Source

School of Management

Blekinge Institute of Technology

Open Source Strategy – The Case of Nokia

Author: Shamayel Khan

Supervisor: Anders Hederstierna

Thesis for the Master’s degree in Business Administration 2009

Title: Open Source Strategy – The Case of Nokia Author: Shamayel Khan Supervisor: Anders Hederstierna Department: School of Management, Blekinge Institute of Technology Course: Master’s thesis in business administration, 15 credits (ECTS). Background Discussion: Nokia’s announcement in 2008 to put its Symbian based Operating Systems in the Open Source domain came in the face of expected competition from other Open Source Software (OSS) rivals such as Google’s Android OS. Moreover, Nokia now relies solely on OSS in order to power the higher end range of its products. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to present a snapshot picture of the current mobile devices market in general and where Nokia stands in particular when it comes to employing Open Source Software in the mobile devices market. Method: The study will be a combination of both academic and empirical research. Academic research will be relied upon when talking generally about future trends and strategies which the company is expected to develop and follow. Empirical study will be used when comparing already available data with regards to other OSS and how they have performed in the past. Conclusions with regards to their success and effectiveness can be drawn by observing their performance in the software market and how they compared with their closed source rivals. These conclusions will be used to underline the decisions taken by Nokia with regards to OSS. Theory: Later parts of the thesis rely upon press statements, public deals, business analysis and predictions made by industry insiders to deduce some conclusions with regards to Nokia’s OSS strategy in the mobile devices market. Analysis: Relying on available data and future trends and analysis, a theoretical picture of...