Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced plans to make
Microsoft Silverlight available for S60 on Symbian OS, the world's
leading smartphone software(1), as well as for Series 40 devices and
Nokia Internet tablets. Adding support for Silverlight will extend
opportunities for developers to create rich, interactive applications
that run on multiple platforms in a consistent and reliable way.
"Today's
consumers are very clear in what they want: easy access to tightly
integrated services and data on any device," said Lee Williams, Senior
Vice President in Nokia's Devices software organization. "Nokia's
software strategy is based on cross-platform development environments,
enabling the creation of rich applications across the Nokia device
range. Nokia aims to support market leading and content rich internet
application environments and to embrace and encourage open innovation.
By working with Microsoft, we are creating terrific opportunities and
additional choices for the development community, S60 licensees and the
industry as a whole."
Silverlight
is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering
next-generation media experiences and rich interactive applications.
Silverlight is already powering thousands of applications around the
world and organizations including Entertainment Tonight, the NBA and
NBC Universal to deliver superior Web-based experiences to their
customers. The arrangement with Nokia will substantially extend the
reach of Silverlight by making the platform available for hundreds of
millions of devices, including S60 on Symbian smartphones from a range
of manufacturers, as well as Nokia Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet
tablets.
"This is
an important relationship on so many levels. Working with Nokia means
we are easily able to reach a huge number of mobile users, including
customers of all S60 licensees. This is a significant step in gaining
broad acceptance for Silverlight and ensuring it is platform agnostic.
This is critical since we want to make sure developers and designers
don't have to constantly recreate the wheel and build different
versions of applications and services for multiple operating systems,
browsers and platforms," said S. Somasegar, Senior Vice President of
Microsoft's Developer Division.
"There
is clear market demand for rich, Web-based services across a variety of
device types, but developing these can often be commercially difficult.
For Microsoft this extends Silverlight to a broader range of vendors,
platforms and devices. For Nokia it expands the web runtime options on
its devices, enabling a wider community of developers and more
applications. This should help the uptake of higher speed mobile
services and advance a new era of anytime, anywhere device-based
computing", said Bola Rotibi , Principal Analyst at Ovum.
Microsoft
will demonstrate Silverlight on S60 during the opening keyote at
Microsoft's MIX08 conference on March 5 in Las Vegas. Silverlight is
intended to be available to S60 developers later this year with initial
service delivery anticipated shortly thereafter for all S60
licensees. This will allow S60 application developers to use an even
wider range of development environments for S60 on Symbian OS than
today. Today S60 developers can use: C++ (using native Symbian OS APIs
and Open C providing subset of standard POSIX libraries), S60 Web
Run-time (supporting standards-based web technologies such as Ajax,
JavaScript, CSS and HTML), the Java(TM) language, Flash Lite from
Adobe, and Python.
Microsoft Silverlight availability for Nokia Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets will be confirmed later.
(1) S60
has already shipped on more smartphones than any other platform,
enabling users to access and enjoy the Internet and Internet services.
S60 covers the broadest product portfolio, with devices for a variety
of segments and needs from different audiences. S60 is the clear leader
in converged device software with over 53% market share globally in Q4
2007 according to the latest Canalys report (January 2008).
About S60
S60
software built on Symbian OS is the world's leading smartphone
software, and is licensed by some of the industry's foremost mobile
device manufacturers. More than 150 million S60 devices had been
shipped by all licensees by January 2008. The flexibility of the S60
software allows for various hardware designs and software
configurations, as evidenced by the multitude of S60 devices already
available on the market. Through its award-winning user interface,
extensive support for new mobile services and the innovation potential
for partner solutions, the S60 provides an open and scalable business
opportunity for mobile operators and 3rd party developers. For further
information and news about the S60 and the S60 community, please visit
www.s60.com.
About Nokia
Nokia
is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth
of the converging Internet and communications industries. Nokia makes a
wide range of mobile devices and provides people with experiences in
music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games and business
mobility through these devices. Nokia also provides equipment,
solutions and services for communications networks.