There was some speculation in our ATI/Bitboys Oy article from our forum reader Frallan that an ATI/Nokia deal was in the works given that Bitboys is a Finnish company. Well, it appears that those predictions were right. ATI has announced that they have reached a long-term agreement with Nokia to bring multimedia processors to Nokia handsets.

Developers will spend the next 12 to 18 months developing powerful platforms based around ATI's Imageon mobile graphics processors. By the fall of 2006, ATI hopes to make available a powerful SDK to developers during the fall of this year and both companies will host workshops to showcase these tools to developers. From ATI's press release:

"Our role is to enable all content, from ultra-high quality music playback to 3D gaming, and we'll jointly guide and support the members of the content development community as they focus on creating amazing user experiences," said Paul Dal Santo, Vice President and GM, Handheld Products, ATI. "With a shared vision of how multimedia impacts the mobile market, Nokia and ATI are providing much needed direction and a framework to move the whole industry forward."