SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON-- These new tools open up application development to creators of any technical ability, providing access to consumers and device manufacturers within the world's largest mobile market.

    "These Symbian web application development tools provide an ideal entry point for web developers targeting the vast, new development opportunities offered by the Symbian^3 platform and the wider mobile marketplace, where compelling applications are proving their ability to fuel communities."

"Now anyone can create fantastic applications for devices such as the Nokia N8, the world's first Symbian^3 device," said Lee Williams, Executive Director of Symbian. "These Symbian web application development tools provide an ideal entry point for web developers targeting the vast, new development opportunities offered by the Symbian^3 platform and the wider mobile marketplace, where compelling applications are proving their ability to fuel communities."

Using Symbian's web application development tools, any existing web developer can simply apply all their existing skills with HTML, CSS and JavaScript but in a mobile context. By exploring just a few more JavaScript APIs, developers can directly access the deep device capabilities that ultimately produce truly engaging applications with mass appeal to the mobile consumer, such as contacts, camera, accelerometers and even location.

Although Symbian web applications can be created using any existing web development environment, the added value delivered by the tools environment provided by Symbian is in areas like mobile-specific application preview, debugging and deployment capabilities. These features further support the transition of desktop development skill into the mobile universe.

Williams added: "With these tools, web developers can leverage their existing expertise effectively to create powerful mobile applications. This, combined with the on-schedule release of Symbian^3, is further proof of our commitment to enabling innovation and empowering all developers, including web developers, to harness the rich capabilities of the Symbian platform."

The new tools, which have recently come out of community beta and are available across all of the major platforms including Windows, Mac and Linux, can be accessed at:
http://developer.symbian.org/main/tools_and_kits/symbian3_developer/index.php.

Information about developing and contributing to the tools as an open source project is available from the package landing page, at: http://developer.symbian.org/main/source/packages/package/index.php?pk=263.

About Symbian

Symbian is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to enable an open ecosystem dedicated to creating the most innovative user experiences on mobile devices. Symbian maintains the code for an open source software platform based on Symbian OS and software assets contributed by Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, and Sony Ericsson, including the S60 and MOAP(S) user interfaces. The Symbian platform is now fully open source.

The foundation promotes collaboration, contributions and active participation, and operates as a meritocracy. Symbian's board of directors comprises: AT&T Mobility LLC, Fujitsu Limited, Nokia Corporation, NTT DOCOMO, INC., Qualcomm Innovation Center, Ltd., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, ST Microelectronics NV, Texas Instruments Inc., and Vodafone Group Services Ltd.

Symbian has offices in the UK (London), US (Foster City), Japan (Tokyo), Finland (Helsinki), China (Beijing) and South Korea (Seoul).

For more information please visit www.symbian.org and blog.symbian.org.