It's a Mobile (and Tasty) World

I came to London to attend the Symbian Smartphone Show, which is all about mobile phones. Alas, it wasn't a conference for mobile phones I stumbled into, but an exhibition on mobile food. I'd like to say it was because I hadn't yet had my morning coffee, but that isn't an excuse the boss will buy.

In any event, I'd just settled into a comfortable chair and was looking forward to hearing Lee Williams, Nokia's senior vice president for software platforms, talk about "New Innovations in User Experiences" when someone named Sue Ellis walked onto the stage and launched into a speech entitled "Reducing Litter in the Food to Go Sector." While it wasn't what I expected, it was interesting -- especially considering the dearth of litter bins I've witnessed in London.

But the big news wasn't my wandering into the wrong hall and getting summarily booted out because I had the wrong color badge on. No, the big news for me was Nokia's interest in "Widgets". This came across loud and clear in a discussion I had with Craig Cumberland, Nokia's director of technology and applications for software platforms. In a nutshell, Nokia is ramping up its Web Run-time for its S60 smartphone platform.

The Web Run-time is a Web application development environment designed to let you create services and content rapidly, and in general lower the barrier of entry into to mobile platforms.

Key to this strategy are widgets -- lightweight Web applications developed with familiar, standards-based Web technologies used create Web pages -- HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and AJAX. With widgets, users can personalize the content and services that matter most to them. Cumberland referred to these as "on-device" applications, adding that "anything you can do on a Web page, you can deliver through a widget." Cumberland went on to say that "widgets on the desktop are okay, but on a mobile device they are a whole different story because of the customization standpoint." (Adding that Nokia is still trying to decide if the right descriptor is "customization" or "personalization".) But Cumberland was quick to point out that the two big issues for developers will continue to be the screen size and how to program soft keys.

Interestingly, Nokia is already looking ahead to the day in which hundreds if not thousands of third-party widgets will be available for users download. In particular, the issues of widget managment and security invariably come up. Posting malicious widgets for widespread download is a concern, and Nokia is being careful about which sandbox is which. Nokia is also starting to think about ways to monetize widgets in schemes that are fair to developers, users, and Nokia. It was suggested (okay, by me) that an iTunes like approach could open up the floodgates of widget development and use. Lots of inexpensive widgets in which Nokia gets a cut for managing and the developer gets a cut for developing. It could be fun.

In the meantime, there's an afternoon session entitled "Cater for the Vegetarian Food to Go Consumer" that I don't want to miss.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 07:09 AM  Permalink