Nokia’s Scalado Technology Will Still be in the BlackBerry 10 Camera
As we reported, Nokia acquired imaging specialists and technology from Scalado last week, designed to bring future enhancements to its Lumia Windows Phones.
Today, at a Windows Phone event in San Francisco, Nokia unveiled some of its camera improvements for its Lumia devices, thanks to Scalado’s technology.
Kevin Shields at Nokia discussed the company’s Scalado plans.
Nokia approached the team to acquire its talent according to Shields, they are “wicked smart” in his eyes.
“We had a choice where we could partner with them…we decided no this is too darn important.”
As a result of the proposed acquisition, Lumia Windows Phones will be updated in a few weeks with Smart Group, Action, Panorama, and Self-Timer options in the camera app that take advantage of Scalado’s technologies.
RIM is integrating some of Scalado’s features into its BlackBerry 10 camera software, but what about other Windows Phone hardware manufacturers?
Shields says Nokia has no plans to license the technology any further. Discussing the move to bring Scalado team in house, he says:
“It’s pretty unlikely that we would then turn around and licence that thing out to our competitors.” He doesn’t rule it out totally though, “never say never” he remarks, but at this point in time he says the company has no intentions to offer it out to other Windows Phone makers or elsewhere.
So, it looks like we will still see the technology in BlackBerry 10 but it makes me wonder how long the existing contract is with RIM and what happens thereafter.
