Nokia is to make Microsoft Silverlight available for its S60 handset on the Symbian operating system.
Nokia will also make Silverlight available on 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, Nokia said.
Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering next-generation media and interactive applications. The arrangement with Nokia will substantially extend the reach of Silverlight by making the platform available for hundreds of millions of devices.
“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 organisation. “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.”
“This is an important relationship on so many levels,” said S Somasegar, senior vice-president of Microsoft’s developer division. “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 as 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.”
Microsoft will demonstrate Silverlight on S60 during the opening keyote at Microsoft’s MIX08 conference on 5 March 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.
By Niall Byrne
