Microsoft’s Silverlight software will now be available on Nokia’s high end smart phones running a Symbian operating system, reports the BBC. Silverlight is a competitor to Adobe’s Flash, which is already used by popular websites such as YouTube.
Nokia’s S60 platform, which uses Symbian, will be the first to take advantage of Silverlight. S60 is also used in handsets built by LG and Samsung. It is the most popular smart phone software platform with more than 53% market share.
Other handsets and internet tablets running different software will follow at a later date, according to the firm. Microsoft says it is currently working on a version of Sliverlight for its own Windows Mobile software.
Silverlight, which has been under development for at least two years, is a player that can display Web applications on both Windows and the Mac in Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. It puts the Windows Media Video format in the browser.
Silverlight allows designers and developers to produce rich web applications that are independent of browser, operating system and handset.
Microsoft says Web 2.0 applications that would work on a desktop, will also run on virtually any other device including mobile phones.
Adobe’s Flash, and its recently launched Air product, dominate the market. Adobe has agreements with 18 of the top 20 device manufacturers worldwide including Nokia. According to Adobe, 450 million devices have also been shipped with the cut-down version of Flash, known as Flash Lite.
Steve Jobs said that the iPhone doesn’t support Flash because it runs too slowly on the device. Users have complained that the iPhone’s lack of Flash support makes the browsing experience less rich than it should be. According to Jobs, Flash Lite doesn’t go far enough, but the full-fledged Flash Player, which is designed to run on laptops, performs sluggishly on the iPhone. He said, “There’s this missing product in the middle.”
Many Verizon Wireless phones now support Flash Lite. Adobe claims 450 million devices have shipped with Flash Lite.
Adobe’s Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is a cross-OS runtime that allows developers to reuse their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop Rich Internet Applications.
Developing apps for the municipal cloud, either WiFi or WiMAX, is an area that some leading colleges have excelled at. The University of George, in Athens, was one of the first. Students developed hundreds of innovative mobile apps that users could enjoy.
Portland, Oregon, with of of the largest (free) WiFi user populations in the world, will also be one of the first mobile WiMAX regions anywhere — incorporating more than 300 square miles.
But students may have to go out of state — even out of the country — if they want to develop for the “cloud”. Local Portland colleges just don’t get it. They’ll leave millions on the table.
The University of Georgia at Athens shows how to mobilize a great development program. Sometimes you just have to take charge and throw the bums out. Through a bloody revolution, if necessary!
Related Dailywireless articles on mobile applications development include; Emergency Communications Applications, Even Plants Twitter, Xohm: Open, Open, Open, Intel Demos WiFi/WiMAX Handover, Cell Carpooling in France, DeviceScape 2.0: Phone-Fi Made Easy, Integrated RF-ID Tracking, Skyfire: Mobile Flash Browser, Street View 2.0, Motorola: It’s All About ME, Phone Development Tutorials, Cellphone Reads to Blind, WiFi Party Music Bot, Taxi Drivers Direct, BelAir + Lucent = City Clouds, UofA WiFi: 32,000 Served, The Connected Bus, Spotigo: WiFi Positioning Client, MIT’s CarTel, Top Seven Intelligent Communities, Free WiFi at Hong Kong Housing Authority, Municipal Wireless Flash Applications, City Clouds: Becoming The World Cup, Opera Does AJAX, BellSouth Expands Athens Wireless, The World Largest WiFi Cloud,
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