Nokia plans to include Microsoft’s Silverlight on its S60 software platform for smartphones running the Symbian OS, beginning later this year. Microsoft’s cross-platform multimedia plug-in will eventually also be on Nokia’s Series 40 devices and Internet Web tablets as well as devices running the Windows Mobile and Linux operating systems.
The deal with Microsoft will provide smartphone developers with more opportunities to create media-rich, interactive applications that run on multiple mobile platforms in a consistent and reliable way, Nokia executives said.
“By working with Microsoft, we are creating terrific opportunities and additional choices for the development community, S60 licensees and the industry as a whole,” said Nokia Senior Vice President Lee Williams. “Nokia aims to support market-leading and content-rich Internet application environments and to embrace and encourage open innovation.”
Reaching a Huge Market
According to the Symbian consortium, in which Nokia holds a commanding 47.9 percent share, more than 77.3 million Symbian-based smartphones were shipped worldwide last year — a 50 percent rise from 2006. The consortium noted that 188 million Symbian-enabled smartphones have shipped since its formation in 1998.
Research firm Canalys pegs Symbian’s share of the global smartphone market at 53 percent. So working with Nokia will give Microsoft an opportunity to reach a huge number of mobile users, including the customers of all S60 licensees, said Microsoft Senior Vice President S. Somasegar.
“This is a significant step in gaining broad acceptance for Silverlight and ensuring it is platform-agnostic,” Somasegar said. “This is critical since we want to make sure developers and designers don’t have to constantly re-create the wheel and build different versions of applications and services for multiple operating systems, browsers and platforms.”
Bridging Technical Barriers
According to Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, the AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) techniques that developers have long used to create…