Mobile picture editing: Nokia purchases Scalado

The long partnership between the two companies has transformed into an acquisition, with Nokia’s innovative technologies provider now providing mobile picture editing software.

The Finnish manufacturer Nokia has finally decided to purchase Swedish Scalado, a mobile picture editing specialist who provides their technologies to numerous manufactures to improve their picture quality and apply transformations.

Scalado was demonstrated at the MWC 2012 show in Barcelona in February/March of this year, with their latest invention, Scalado Remove, a service that allows users remove certain elements from a picture (an unwanted silhouette from someone in the background, for example).

Scalado also offers numerous optimisation solutions for photos and editing options which can then be made on smartphones and mobile phones. Nokia has regularly called on these services for their smartphones, with the two companies having a long standing partnership (more than ten years of cooperation). Nokia has now decided to purchase their partner, getting their hands on the precious technologies and patents as well as expertise in the mobile editing field.

The acquisition isn’t really surprising in the sense that Nokia has often pushed the photographic qualities of their smartphones, with their lenses (via a partnership with Carl Zeiss) producing high quality pictures, like with the surprising Nokia 808 PureView and its 41 mega pixel lens (which we will soon find on Windows Phone).

The acquisition amount is unknown, with the transaction to be finalised by the third quarter of 2012 after regulators’ approval.