Dear Nokia Developer,
Over the past few weeks, much has been said about Nokia’s announced strategy. From many of you I have heard words of approval or concern, as well as questions. Please continue the dialogue with me and the Forum Nokia team.
I want to clarify the significance of this announcement for you, how Nokia plans to support developers and what opportunities it will bring now and in the future.
First, let's remember what was announced; Three main aspects of our strategy:
What about Symbian? What about Qt?
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Obviously, these questions immediately arise. Although Windows Phone will be our main platform for smartphones, we will continue to benefit from Symbian. We are making investments that will help attract new and retain existing Symbian users and allow us to release new competitive smartphones.
Over the past weeks, we have checked the product release plan for Symbian and now we are confident that we will indeed have a strong portfolio of new products during the transition period, that is, in 2011 and 2012. These devices will benefit from strong integration with services, as well as our trump cards, such as photo and geolocation services. They will have more powerful hardware, including processors with a frequency of more gigahertz and faster graphics.
To further increase the competitiveness of these products, we will release updates for Symbian. The first major update will take place in the summer, it will include a new main screen, new icons, a faster browser, a new Navbar, as well as fresh Ovi Store and Ovi Maps, including the integration of social media into the Ovi Maps service.
You could see some of these changes on the Nokia C7 Astound, our latest product, featured at CTIA Wireless. These and other innovations will be delivered to all devices by an automatic update that appears on the main screen. Owners of Nokia Astound will also receive an update with missing features at the same time with all.
I was repeatedly asked how long we would support Symbian. I am sure that many thought that we were avoiding an answer. The truth is that it is very difficult to give a simple answer. We hope to bring Windows Phone devices to the market as quickly as possible, but Windows Phone will not have support for all languages and all localizations from day one.
In many markets, including where Symbian is now the most popular platform for smartphones with a significant market share (China, India, Russia, Turkey), we will continue to position our Symbian portfolio in the most competitive way possible while working with Microsoft for developing Windows Phone devices. Certain markets will play a more important role in the sale of 150 million Symbian devices, and we will sell there Symbian smartphones for a long time after Windows Phone smartphones appear in other markets. That is why we cannot name a specific date when support for Symbian will be discontinued.
What I can promise is that we will not just abandon Symbian users and developers. At a minimum, we have legal obligations for the term of support, which is different in different countries. We are required to provide support for several years after the last phone is sold. Our goal is that when the Symbian device’s life cycle comes to an end, users will buy new Nokia Windows Phone phones. So it is not in our interest to degrade their experience with Symbian. Telecom operators assured us that they are ready to continue selling and supporting Symbian devices while we are making the transition to Windows Phone. Ovi Store is available to users in more than 190 countries. Now 109 operators in 34 countries support accepting payments in favor of the store, and no doubt they will continue to support the platform with such good localization, differentiation and flexible payment options, while we are starting to develop excellent new devices with Microsoft.
Qt, the development platform for Symbian, and the future MeeGo technology remain critical, and Nokia
promises to invest in Qt as the best toolkit for these platforms, and we plan future developments as part of our plan to
eliminate commercial business licenses , which were mainly used customers outside the mobile market.
In addition, we are preparing application analytics, embedded advertising in applications, billing built into applications (selling virtual goods inside the program), a new browser and a hardware upgrade. Developers will find a lot of new and useful things in APIs that are planned for release soon. We continue to use Qt in other areas of our strategic investments.
So briefly, there are a lot of interesting things expected on Symbian and Qt, many new devices and platform improvements, and we believe that users will download great programs and install on their devices.
All this together means that your Qt investment is a safe choice for applying your abilities, for monetization and brand awareness among millions of our users.
The announcement of the partnership has caused many to think about how Forum Nokia and Microsoft will support you in the future. As soon as we discuss this in detail with Microsoft, we will share information with you. However, we listen to your concerns and comments. Nokia and Microsoft share the vision and intent of making the transition for developers as smoothly as possible.
Nokia’s second pillar strategy, the Internet for the Third World (“Internet for the Next Billion”), also represents our increased attention to opportunities for developers, especially Java developers. Nokia sells more than a million simple mobile phones (features phones) per day; Awesome number by any standards. Developers can now distribute their Java applications to about 600 million Series 40 devices.
We intend to bring in more innovations and improvements for developers under Series 40. We continue to develop easy-to-use tools and SDKs to make Java developers even easier, easier and more accessible to work. For example, there is a free signature for Java applications; new SDK for Touch and Type UI already on the market; plus there are plans for improved support for our devices, proxy browsing and support for web applications.
Consumers around the world are looking forward to new applications for Nokia phones.
The area of breakthrough technologies in our strategy includes work on MeeGo and Nokia Research Center - Nokia's global laboratories exploring the technologies of the future. As for MeeGo, you will hear from us the latest news in the coming months.
In the end, the winners of the
Calling All Innovators contest with a prize fund of $ 10M have not yet been determined. Deadline is approaching: March 31, so do not forget to declare your application. If the content of your application is suitable for consumers in the US and Canada, you can receive a portion of the prize pool of ten million dollars in money and gifts. Distributing such large checks and seeing how your applications are downloaded by millions of users is the most enjoyable part of my work.
In the coming weeks and months, we will continue to inform you about the status of Symbian, Windows Phone and Series 40, as well as new improvements in the Ovi Store. We are pleased to work with you in each of these areas. Meanwhile, we are waiting for your next Qt program or web application in the Ovi Store!
Best wishes,
Purnima Kochikar
Vice President, Forum Nokia