Cambridge, England:
Open-source development company Collabora and Nokia joined forces to develop Telepathy, a real-time communication framework. Already, the collaboration has yielded an active open-source community around the framework itself.
The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet OS 2006 Edition uses Telepathy as the foundation for VoIP and instant messaging functionality, enabling users to communicate via text or voice with friends using Google Talk and Jabber servers across the world.
Says Nokia R&D Manager Yannick Pellet, "When we began this project to bring VoIP and IM to the 770, we first looked around in the open-source world to see if anyone out there was looking to solve the same issues that we were facing. After meeting with the people from Collabora and discussing their plans, it became clear that Collabora's idea for an open source instant messaging and VoIP framework were a good match for our requirements.
"Telepathy is a tribute to the speed and quality of development that can be attained when the corporate and open-source world work hand-in-hand toward the same goals. Open-source development and spot-on design has allowed us to achieve a small development miracle.
"From this initial conception, Collabora founded and fostered a community for the Open Source Telepathy project with our support and involvement. The framework solves all major issues of flexibility and scalability, providing a robust platform for third-party extendibility in the future."
According to CEO Rob Taylor, "Nokia has emerged as a spearhead of Open Source development on embedded Linux. This project provided a unique opportunity to show how a solution to a client's specific problems could also be the basis of a vibrant Open Source community project."