When it bought mobile media-sharing startup Twango last year, Nokia
said it would use the Redmond company as a base to expand its presence
in the Seattle area. The Finnish wireless giant wasn't kidding.
The company, the world's largest handset maker, disclosed plans
Thursday for a major research and development facility that it is
planning to open this summer in Kirkland, taking the first two floors
of a building being remodeled in the Park Place shopping and office
complex.
The 25,000-square-foot space has room for up to 125 employees,
signaling Nokia's intentions to tap the region's pool of wireless and
software talent. It will also have a distinctly Nordic feel, with an
interior featuring natural woods and bold colors.
"This is going to be a Nokia world-class facility," said Serena
Glover, a Twango co-founder who is now director of entertainment and
communities at Nokia.
It's a spectacular surge for Twango, which had 10 employees working
from Glover's Redmond basement when it sold to Espoo, Finland-based
Nokia last summer. At the time Nokia planned to bring five engineers
from Finland and hire five more, bringing the team to 20.
Now Glover, a nine-year Microsoft veteran, is leading a group of 51
building online entertainment and community services that are a key
component of Nokia's online media portal, called Ovi.
It may take several years to fill the Kirkland offices, which will
also house some Nokia salespeople in the area, but Glover said the
company is serious about its plans to leverage the area's expertise.
"We're the beachhead now in Seattle, and Nokia has recognized Seattle as a key market," she said.
Twango's service, now called Share, pits Ovi against
online-photo-sharing communities such as Yahoo's Flickr and Google's
Picasa, but Glover said Nokia's advantages include its huge user base
and its technology for handling and sharing digital media on mobile
devices.
Another milestone is coming in early summer, when the
Twango-developed photo-sharing application is expected to be preloaded
for the first time on phones, starting with the upcoming Nokia N78.
