3GSM: Series 60 goes after Chinese market

CANNES, FRANCE--Series 60 is making its debut in China, gaining a foothold in East Asia after years of being a European centric platform. The Chinese consumer device manufacturer announced today that it will begin selling a Symbian/Series 60-based smartphone in that market later this year.

The announcement comes on the tails of Nokia's major strategy shift, targeting its latest release of the Series 60 middleware for the mass market instead of only high-end phones. The Chinese market, along with India and Latin America, are considered high-volume markets where vendors launch low-end to mid-range devices to support those areas' rapid growth in wireless. Lenovo, however, did not say whether its new handset, the P390, would incorporate Series 60 version 3, but since the device includes many advanced features, such as a 1.3 Megapixel camera, video recoding and Bluetooth connectivity, it's unlikely its initial phones will target the average Chinese consumer.

Nokia's Mobile Software division also announced today a licensing agreement with Macromedia to support the developers' Flash multimedia technology on its Series 60 and other middleware platforms. The agreement makes Series 60 a reference platform for a new version of mobile Flash technology Macromedia is currently developing. The deal effectively brings together two of the largest software developer communities in the world, coupling 1.8 million Series 60 developers with 1 million Macromedia developers. The two companies will jointly develop a software toolkit that will allow developers from both communities to create Flash content optimized for mobile devices.

Another of Nokia's Series 60 licensees, Sendo unveiled a dedicated digital music phone called the X2. The phone incorporates a multimedia player that supports AAC and AAC+ music formats, optimized to conserve power and processor resources and uses Open Mobile Alliance digital rights management. Despite its feature set, the handset still isn't a mobile version of an iPod. The phone stores its music on Flash memory, starting at 32 MB, but Sendo said that memory can be expanded up to 1 GB.