NOKIA TO UPDATE SYMBIAN BELLE PLATFORM SOON

Nokia will soon update its Symbian Belle platform
with a suite of business-based applications called
Microsoft Apps. The Microsoft Apps suite is free and
features Microsoft PowerPoint and OneNote. Nokia
believes the update will “add some serious business
productivity tools” for those buying Symbian Belle
device or those seeking to upgrade from Symbian
Anna to Symbian Belle.
The Microsoft Apps suite includes Microsoft Lync 2010
Mobile, Microsoft PowerPoint Broadcast, Microsoft
OneNote and Microsoft Document Connection. The
Apps will include Microsoft OneNote sync with
SharePoint update in early 2012. Nokia and Microsoft
also plan to include Microsoft Word, Excel and
PowerPoint as native applications in the second
update. The first batch of the apps is expected to be
rolled out by fourth quarter of this year.
Nokia says on its blog that the launch of Microsoft
Apps for Symbian shows Nokia has not halted
development of its Symbian platform. And more
updates will be made in 2012. “We will provide
software support to Symbian until at least 2016.
Symbian is hugely important to our future ambitions
and this latest announcement is just another example
of the role that Symbian will play,”says Nokia.
The Microsoft Apps will be delivered via software
update over the air or via PC download and will
function on the Nokia N8, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01,
Nokia E7, Nokia E6, Nokia X7, Nokia 700, Nokia 701,
Nokia 600 and Nokia Oro. Additionally, the Finnish
giant is working with Microsoft to provide mobile
device management of Symbian Belle devices through
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012.
Earlier, Nokia had announced its Symbian Belle-based
phones namely Nokia 700,701 and 600. All three
phones are expected sometime in third quarter of this
year. Nokia also talked about making its new
operating system compatible with previous generation
Symbian^3 and Symbian Anna platforms.