Nokia, Borland to collaborate on accelerating application development for new Nokia Series 60 Platform

At the recently held 6th International Nokia Mobile Internet Conference, Borland Software and Nokia announced an extension to their partnership. The companies intend to expand Borland JBuilder and Borland JBuilder MobileSet support to the Nokia Series 60 Platform and develop a new Borland C++ development environment for Nokia`s new, Symbian OS-based platform for application and feature driven mobile devices.

Borland continues its commitment of providing freedom of choice to developers. Organisations can choose to develop next-generation mobile applications using the forthcoming Borland C++Builder MobileSet, based on the next version of the award-winning Borland C++Builder, or with JBuilder, the market leading Java development environment, in conjunction with JBuilder MobileSet. With this support, developers can easily build, debug, and deploy applications to devices running the Series 60 Platform.

The new Series 60 Platform, announced by Nokia at Fall Comdex 2001, consists of telephony and personal information management applications, browser and messaging, and downloading clients, and a complete and modifiable user interface, designed to run on top of the Symbian OS, an operating system for advanced, data enabled mobile phones. Nokia intends to license the Series 60 Platform as a source-code product. This will enable licensees to integrate the software platform into their own application-driven phone designs, accelerating application development and the roll-out of new phone models at lower costs.

"The Series 60 Platform will expand opportunities for developers around the world because not only will they have standardised and familiar tools to develop applications for Nokia terminals, but also the tools for terminals of other leading manufacturers who are licensing the Series 60 Platform because of their commitment to open standards," said Jouko Hayrynen, vice president, Developer Community Activities for Forum Nokia.

"Through the extension of Borland JBuilder and C++Builder MobileSet solutions to support the Nokia Series 60 Platform, application developers will have a proven development platform to efficiently go after new market opportunities."

"By working closely with Nokia and licensees of the Series 60 Platform, Borland intends to provide developers with robust Java and C++ development platforms for delivering enhanced mobile applications," said Manoli Rodokanakis, country manager for Borland Southern Africa. "Borland has a strong heritage in creating and supporting open, standards-based solutions, and we are pleased to support Nokia`s efforts and those of others in the industry to align mobile device manufacturers towards open standards."

This announcement follows the release at Fall Comdex 2001, where Nokia and other industry leaders committed to open mobile architecture enabling a non-fragmented global mobile services market. By adhering to consistent global and open standards, these industry leaders and developers will be able to provide consumers with a wide selection of different competitive, yet interoperable terminals and services, and hence promote significant industry growth, and also aim to ensure that economies of scale are enjoyed throughout the industry.

Borland JBuilder and Borland JBuilder MobileSet, Nokia Edition, currently support rapid development of applications for the Java 2 Platform, Mobile Edition (J2ME) on the market-leading Nokia 9210 handheld mobile device. This software solution will also be available for the new Nokia 7650 mobile phone that was also announced at the Nokia Mobile Internet Conference. JBuilder MobileSet can be used with the free JBuilder Personal, but requires purchase of JBuilder Enterprise or JBuilder Professional for commercial application development.

Borland and Nokia also intend to release a new Borland C++Builder MobileSet development platform for rapidly developing high-performance small footprint Nokia Series 60 Platform applications on the Symbian OS. The new Borland C++ development environment, expected to be released in the first half of 2002, as currently planned, will be available both as a standalone development environment and as an expansion to the popular, award-winning Borland C++Builder product line.

For further information, please contact Borland Southern Africa on telephone (011) 622-1635, or fax (011) 622-1534, or visit the local or international Web sites www.borland.co.za or www.borland.com.