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Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - by Eric Engleman
Mobile phone giant Nokia Corp. is expanding in the Seattle area with a new research and development office.
Nokia (NYSE: NOK), based in Espoo, Finland, established a presence in Puget Sound by buying Twango, a photo and video sharing website, in July 2007. At the time, Twango had just 10 employees operating out of basement in Redmond.
Since then, Nokia has grown that staff to 51 and hopes to expand to 70 to 90 people by the end of this year, said Serena Glover, a co-founder of Twango who now heads the local Nokia office.
The Nokia staff is now occupying temporary space in Bellevue but plans to move into 25,000 square feet of new office space in Kirkland, not far from where search giant Google has an R&D office, Glover said.
Nokia is the latest big technology company to put down roots in Puget Sound. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), and social networking website MySpace, a unit of News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), have opened offices here to tap the talent pool of the local technology industry.
Glover, who holds the title of director of communities at Nokia, said her team will be working on internet services for the company's Ovi brand.
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