March 04, 2008


Extends choice for developers on the world's leading mobile platforms
 
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.