Nokia Ovi Suite Looks to Entice Developers, Challenge Apple App Store

by Darryl K. Taft

Nokia welcomes developers to its Nokia Developer Summit 2009.

Rob Taylor, global head of Forum Nokia, the developer outreach arm of Nokia, records a video clip of the audience on his Nokia smartphone to post to Ovi Share.

Nokia’s developer strategy features run-times and tools to enable developers to build applications across several platforms.

Nokia encourages developers to focus on two primary development platforms to build applications: the Qt cross-platform environment and standard Web-based tools such as Adobe Flash, WebKit and Aptana Studio, which uses standard Web technologies such as JavaScript, CSS, HTML and more.

Forum Nokia is the developer hub for all Nokia-related development.

Nokia’s Taylor shows where developers should invest time to make money off the Nokia platform. He lists three main options: Nokia’s Ovi Store and operator portals; preloading; and service partnership possibilities.

Nokia’s market penetration means developers have many devices to target and many opportunities to make money.

Tero Ojanpera, executive vice president of Nokia Services, says teamwork pays off when all positions work together.

Ojanpera says Ovi represents opportunities for the individual developer.

The Ovi Share service features integration with social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

Nokia’s Ovi Messaging platform features integration with AOL, Facebook, Google, Windows Live and Yahoo.

Nokia announces the beta of a software development kit (SDK) for its upcoming N97.

Nokia and Adobe announce five winning applications to get funding from the Open Screen Project Fund.

Rob Taylor, global head of Forum Nokia, and Tero Ojanpera, executive vice president of Nokia Services, answer developer questions after keynote addresses at the Nokia Developer Summit 2009.