In an effort to increase its control over the Symbian OS, Nokia last week acquired a collection of application development tools from Metrowerks.

The deal transfers all the development and support resources of Metrowerks' portfolio of tools for Symbian OS to Nokia. In addition, Metrowerks will license several technologies, including a debugger, compiler and its CodeWarrior development suite, to Nokia. Metrowerks will resell the Nokia-owned technology, officials said.

The deal gives Nokia nearly exclusive control of the Symbian platform and device development processes, which should speed time to market for Symbian applications and broaden the pool of available offerings, officials said.

Nokia will hire 24 Metrowerks engineers as part of the deal and will open a new Nokia facility in Austin, Texas, officials said. The deal should be finalized next quarter. Terms were not disclosed.

This article was first published on eweek.com.