Forum Nokia Developer Conference India 2009

This event was very nicely packaged. The speakers were great. The content delivery was perfectly orchestrated. Here a glimpse of the highlights:

User Interface

• Qt Framework is the next thing to invest on. Try to keep away from Symbian Avkon framework and GTK+ as much as possible
• Use Adobe Flash Lite for UI as an alternative to C++, if have very few C++ experts in your team.
• Nokia Widget Development (Web Runtime/WRT) is also an great alternative to the current UI frameworks, if you have good web developers with HTML, CSS and JavaScript experience
• Maps are getting lot of attention. Maps integration is a significant plus point for Nokia, since its free for use within Nokia devices.

Devices

• More touch sensitive devices are going to show-up in 2010.
• Most likely get dedicated Graphic Processors like what we have in N95 and N900, for accelerating applications using OpenGL ES.
• Smartphones would use Symbian, while Mobile Computers use Maemo.

Operating Systems

1. Symbian
   • Still stays strong inside Nokia
   • Will continue to empower Smartphone devices
2. Maemo is great in a lot of aspects.
   • Standard Unix port
   • Porting GTK+ applications is very easy
   • Localization road map to Indic languages is not visible yet

Other highlights

• Good showcase on Agile project execution. This was very helpful with tips and techniques for mobile development projects.
• Nokia is going after local app store market approach for INDIA and other emerging markets. So, there is a strong support from Nokia, if you are interested in making money in INDIA market.
• Nokia is positively different from other vendors, when it comes marketing approaches towards making mobile application vendors profitable.

Overall, I was very glad to have participate in this event.