Richard: It's been 18 months since S60 3rd Edition was announced, clearly there were challenges with the changes, how has the transition worked?

Lee: The introduction of S60 3rd Edition was a significant change. We broke binary compatibility with previous version of the platform and introduced enhanced platform security. As a result our focus was on ensuring that developers could migrate easily. At the same time we needed to get devices to market; if you don't have devices in the market there is not a huge incentive for developers to start porting. To add to the challenge many developers were still busy taking full advantage of S60 2nd Edition Feature Pack 3, so convincing developers to free resources was tough.

We now have 12 S60 3rd Edition devices in the market and more on their way. We are seeing healthy numbers of new applications coming to the market every month. These applications are not just ports of earlier versions; many are new applications, with features we had not anticipated.

And it's only going to get better. We have many exciting technologies and features coming in the new devices; features such as the motion sensor API, integrated GPS, and music capabilities. There is now a huge range of features available to developers; plenty of opportunities for developers to think differently, think outside the box and really push the envelope.

Richard: What do you see as the challenges now?

Lee: The real challenge now is getting the great innovation developers are creating into the hands of the consumer. We are addressing this with Nokia Content Discoverer, where we are putting a catalogue of software on devices. There are some 50 Nokia device programs [which includes Series 40 phones] committed to shipping the catalogue client. As a result, we expect this initiative to reach the phones of 20 million consumers by the end of 2006.

At the same time we still need good old fashioned sales and marketing; to make consumers aware of S60 as an open extensible system they can add applications and content to. This needs to come from us in Nokia, operators, aggregators and application developers.

Richard: And is that going to happen?

Lee: Yes. You can expect to see Nokia beginning to promote the device experience and by experiences we obviously mean software and content. We have already covered the hardware experience well at Nokia, but you will see more initiative along the lines of the multimedia groups "see new, hear new, do new, play new" campaign. So there is a lot to come in terms of educating consumer that these devices are more than a great phone.

Richard: One area which has given rise to speculation about the future of S60 is the way in which Nokia seems to be embracing the open source community more and more? What does this really mean for S60?

Lee: I think the important thing here is to understand open source in a platform context. At the core of S60 you have Symbian OS. Symbian OS is wonderful, deep, and rich; you can do a lot with it, but learning to develop in C++ for the platform is not easy for everyone. So we have Java, Flash, Python and so on, as well as the browser to fulfill the platform's mission.

So with the S60 browser we chose open source because Safari fitted well with what we wanted to achieve. We could use the web kit, add our own assets and then publish a web kit for the industry. Getting the industry to embrace a common core browser technology would be great for the industry as well as developers. Open source is an excellent route to achieving this. Hopefully it will happen, when it does developers and content providers will be able to write to a single core technology.

With Python we saw a new class of developer that would benefit from access to S60, and it's certainly been a very interesting opportunity for Nokia. Of course the code is open source and we have seen many Python developers taking advantage of the S60 code.

So in these cases it was not open source alone that drove our decisions; we chose what was right for the platform.

Flash is an excellent example of picking the right technology. There is a large Flash community out there and Adobe has a strong mobile strategy. We want to bring Flash content to the devices too and make Flash valuable to the end consumer. And then of course there is Java. It's still the primary driver for revenue for developers, as well as an accepted industry technology.

Interestingly a third of our developers say they are already doing Linux development. These developers could be best served if we let them use more of their existing Linux assets. So we are looking at ways to do this within Symbian. It's all about speeding up the time to market and increasing profits for the developers.

Richard: Tools are obviously a big part of making things easier for developers.

Lee: Yes, and tool support for Symbian developers is critical to Nokia. This is why we have invested heavily, in acquiring assets from Metroworks and ripping them apart and rebuilding them to best serve Symbian developers. So we have moved off Metroworks and onto Eclipse; joining the Eclipse Foundation as a strategic developer in the process. We are seeing lots of benefits in cost and time market from that move.

Richard: How much revenue do you see tools generating?

Lee: Is it not a huge revenue driver for Nokia, it was never intended to be. It's about creating the enabling technology to ensure that applications and devices get to market. Carbide.c++ is being used by Symbian, Nokia, Sony Ericson and DoCoMo, in fact anyone who is building devices based on the Symbian OS. So it is a very important asset to us and I guess the partners would say the same thing.

Richard: You mentioned Sony Ericsson; however support for S60 is much stronger in Carbide.c++ than it is for UIQ. S60 developers get on-device debugging, the UI designer, and performance investigation. Why is there not the same support across the entire ecosystem?

Lee: We have committed to the industry that we will deliver the core capabilities they need, and that included Sony Ericsson and UIQ. But, like any good development project we must operate with a road map and a budget. We build the roadmap by asking our customers what they want, look at the budgets and talk to them about how we make it happen.

S60 is the leading smartphone platform and it is where developers will get the most value, so it makes sense that on device debugging and other features that you mention come to S60 first. If they are going to come in UIQ, it will be because there is a demand from developers. But we haven't heard this from our customers, yet.

About Lee Epting - Vice President, Forum Nokia

Lee Epting, a software developer relations executive with over fifteen years experience in the technology sector, is Vice President of Forum Nokia, Nokia's global developer support community. In this role, Epting is responsible for driving the business connections between Forum Nokia and more than 2 million registered Forum Nokia software developers, mobile network operators, content aggregators and enterprises.

At Nokia, Epting has been instrumental in defining and creating Developer Platforms, the building blocks of a system that enables developers to efficiently and conveniently create applications that target mass volumes with minimal customization and maximum profit potential.

Prior to joining Nokia in 2003, Epting worked with Palm, Inc and later Handspring in technology development management. Epting was instrumental in helping to build the Palm OS platform while working for Palm Inc, as well as recruiting, managing and supporting Enterprise ISV partners for the Palm OS platform, such as SAP, Oracle, Remedy, Lotus and Computer Associates. While working for Handspring, Epting launched the Springboard expansion platform for Visor handhelds, launched the wireless development platform for the Treo handheld communicator and created the Handspring Enterprise Alliance program.

Epting speaks regularly at technology and telecommunications industry conferences, her most recent conference program participation at the World Wide Web Conference 2006 in Edinburgh, Scotland (www.2006.org), where she detailed the announcement of Nokia's contribution to the global open-source community of the core engine code for its leading mobile "Web Browser for S60." Other recent industry conference participation includes presentations at the annual 2005 Evans Data Developer Relations Conference, the Wireless Developer Forum @ 3GSM World Congress 2004; and Oracle Open World 2002.

Epting earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics and is a graduate of Santa Clara University's International Business Degree Program.