Nokia announced plans to make Microsoft Silverlight available for the S60 platform on Symbian OS, as well as for Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets. The company said that adding support for Silverlight will “extend opportunities for developers to create rich, interactive applications that run on multiple platforms.”
Lee Williams, senior vice president in Nokia’s Devices software organization, said in a statement: “Today’s consumers are very clear in what they want: easy access to tightly integrated services and data on any device. Nokia’s software strategy is based on cross-platform development environments…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 media and rich interactive applications. Silverlight already powers thousands of applications around the world and organizations including Entertainment Tonight, the NBA and NBC Universal to deliver 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…This is a significant step in gaining broad acceptance for Silverlight and ensuring it is platform agnostic,” said S. Somasegar, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Developer Division, in a statement.
Microsoft will demonstrate Silverlight on S60 during the opening keynote 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. Silverlight availability for Nokia Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets will be confirmed later.
