NOKIA PRESS RELEASE Desember 6, 2005
Nokia honors top application development companies with 2005 industry accolades
Third-party developers from U.S., China, Hong Kong, Norway receive Forum Nokia PRO 2005 Awards
Espoo, Finland – Nokia, the global leader in mobility, today announced the winners of its annual Forum Nokia PRO Awards, highlighting some of the mobile industry’s major advances and accomplishments during 2005 in the development of applications and content.
“Forum Nokia is extremely proud of the caliber of developers in our PRO community which includes both some of the fastest-growing and most innovative developer companies and many of the largest IT solutions providers in the world,” said Lee Epting, vice president, Forum Nokia. “These awards demonstrate the extraordinary high level of technical sophistication that can be found in today’s best mobile applications. The awards highlight the way that developers are keeping pace with the advances we have made in offering powerful devices that support cutting edge business and consumer services.”
The PRO Awards, judged by an international panel of mobile industry journalists and analysts with input from Nokia representatives, recognize applications and services that had the greatest impact on the global mobility market in the past year. The winners, chosen from among the more than 160 PRO member companies participating in this year’s awards, each will receive one year’s free Forum Nokia membership, valued at more than $5,000 U.S.
Receiving the Award for Developer of the Year was Quickoffice, Inc. for its Quickoffice Premier S60 mobile office suite. Quickoffice, one of four U.S. companies recognized in the competition, provides full functionality in using Microsoft Office documents in native file formats on S60 devices. The software allows users to access, modify or create office documents such as contracts, agreements, business plans, sales presentation and financial reports – any Word, Excel or PowerPoint document – right from their smartphone.
Other U.S. winners included Digital Chocolate, which won the Series 40 Games/Entertainment category for its “WordKing Poker” game, combining the mental challenge of word games with the fun of poker, and SEVEN, selected as the best S60 Enterprise application for its Always-On Mail 5.0 that provides secure, real-time email access. In addition to emailing, calendaring, and contacts, Always-On Mail supports viewing, editing, and sending attachments, as well as sending and receiving meeting requests.
Birdstep Technology, a Norwegian company, also won for its innovation in bringing mobility to the enterprise. Birdstep SmartRoaming Client for Symbian OS provides seamless roaming support for WLAN enabled smartphones. The SmartRoaming client received the best Enterprise application for the Series 80 platform award.
In the Rising Star category, Hong Kong’s Green Tomato was selected as the top developer with fewer than 30 employees. More than 30 leading Asian mobile carriers and service aggregators carry Green Tomato’s creative content, including its “Mon Amour IMG” 3D interactive movie game.
Recognizing the growing importance of multi-player gaming and location-based technology, the judges also recognized “Quest for Seven Swords/3G Fairy Quest,” a 3D, location-based Treasure Hunting game using 3G network location tracking. Created by China’s M-Gen Mobile Technology Ltd., “Quest” won in the best S60 Games-Entertainment category. The application was deployed in Hong Kong last year to exploit the city’s near 100 percent 3G network coverage.
Rounding out the U.S.’s strong showing was the ARPU category winner, Vidiator Technology, Inc. for its VeeStream “any-to-any” multimedia streaming platform. VeeStream is currently deployed in 10 countries worldwide, delivering up to 1 million streams per day in Europe.
The Forum Nokia PRO Awards were open to all members of the Forum Nokia PRO program which provides unique benefits in technology access, business development support and marketing opportunities to qualified companies. Members of the judging panel included:
– Mike Dano, online editor, RCR Wireless News (U.S.)
– Stuart Dredge, editor, Mobile Games Analyst (U.K.)
– Kevin Fitchard, senior editor, Telephony (U.S.)
– Colin Gibbs, reporter, RCR Wireless News (U.S.)
– Glenn Letham, managing editor, SymbianOne.com (Canada)
– Bryan Ma, associate director, Asia/Pacific Personal Systems Research IDC (Singapore)
– Tomohiko Miyano, editor-in-chief, Weekly ASCII Magazine (Japan)
– Mark Newman, chief research officer, Informa Telecoms and Media (U.K.)
– Stuart O’Brien, editor, Mobile Entertainment (U.K.)
– Brad Smith, data/IP editor, Wireless Week (U.S.)
– Yan Yuelong, deputy editor-in-chief, Telecom World Magazine (China)
– Eric Zeman, editor-in-chief, Mobile Enterprise Magazine (U.S.)
The 2005 Forum Nokia PRO Award winners are:
Developer of the Year
Quickoffice (U.S.)
www.quickoffice.com
Rising Star
Green Tomato (Hong Kong)
www.g-tomato.com
ARPU Award
“VeeStream”
Vidiator Technology (U.S.)
www.vidiator.com
Enterprise Application (Series 80)
“Smartroaming”
BirdStep Technology (Norway)
www.birdstep.com
Games/Entertainment Application (S60)
“Quest for Seven Swords”
M-Gen (China)
www.m-gen.com
Enterprise Application (S60)
“Always On Email”
SEVEN (U.S.)
www.seven.com
Games/Entertainment Application (Series 40)
“WordKing Poker”
Digital Chocolate (U.S.)
www.digitalchocolate.com
More information about the winners is available at: https://pro.forum.nokia.com/site/global/case_studies/p_proawards_x.jsp
About Forum Nokia
Nokia’s global developer program, Forum Nokia connects developers to tools, technical information, support, and distribution channels they can use to build and market applications around the globe. From offices in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, and Singapore, Forum Nokia provides technical and business development support to developers and operators to assist them in achieving their goal of successfully launching applications and services to consumers and enterprises.
About Nokia
Nokia is a world leader in mobile communications, driving the growth and sustainability of the broader mobility industry. Nokia connects people to each other and the information that matters to them with easy-to-use and innovative products like mobile phones, devices and solutions for imaging, games, media and businesses. Nokia provides equipment, solutions and services for network operators and corporations.