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Aug. 14, 2008

With all of what's been happening in the open source community, Nokia just launched its new mobile developer forum.

Called Forum Nokia, the mobile handset maker has recognized eight mobile developers, six of them from the U.S., for their innovative applications that include widgets, location-based services, social networking, multimedia, back-up and enterprise connectivity.

The industry recognition is part of Forum Nokia’s 2008 Innovation Series, which selects various developer applications based on internal Nokia reviews and consumer focus groups from around the world.

The program targets small and medium-sized developers and provides them with business and auxiliary marketing support. One of the qualifications is that the applications must have a clear market demand, the Forum said.

Overall, the eight developers include forum member "Plusmo" from Santa Clara for its standards-based widgets. And "Pelago" from Seattle, for its Whrrl location-based social discovery tool.

Also selected was forum member "Qik" from Foster City, Calif., for its multimedia communications application for streaming video, audio and instant messaging.

It also includes Web Messenger from Los Angeles, for its Symbian client for Microsoft Office Communications Server, and a few more.

Video demonstrations of the first group of developers are posted on Nokia’s Share on the Ovi website.

Some think that the wireless industry is changing rapidly, thanks to important changes in the open source community, such as witnessed by Motorola. Motorola calls its Linux MotoDev Developer Studio a public preview forum that is still a "work in progress" but the handset maker is 100 percent committed to its success.

Additionally, Openmoko said it will soon publish its schematics for Linux phones. In a bold and unexpected move, Openmoko, the open-source mobile handset development group, announces that its electronic schematics will be freely published to any company that wants them.

Though an unsettling idea to most modern handset manufacturers, Motorola included, in Openmoko’s opinion its schematics are just another form of general documentation, the company and its partners explained.

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Source: Nokia.