Phone equipment giant Nokia announced three regional winners of the first Series 60 Asia Challenge on 27 November. The contest selected innovative new applications for the Series 60 platform, terminal software for smart phones.

More than 300 entries were received from Asia Pacific contestants, divided into three categories: Games, Music & Media, Enterprise, Productivity & Messaging. Symbian, Java and MMS (multimedia messaging)-based applications were accepted. The winning criteria were innovation, quality and usability, according to Nokia.

The contest was judged by both Nokia and participating operators. "The Nokia Series 60 Asia Challenge gives wireless developers the opportunity to showcase their talents and creativity, as well as gain access to regional and global marketplaces," said Jawahar Kanjilal, the director of digital services and applications with Nokia Mobile Phones Asia Pacific.

eScience Corp from the Philippines adapted an arcade dance game for their Symbian Music & Media category winner, called "Thumbeat Mobile Dance Revolution". By pressing the phone keypad, the player can move an animated character dancing to background music, with points awarded for dancing to the rhythm of the music.

Besides US$8,000 each, the contestants will receive free technical support from Nokia to develop and test their applications for commercial use. Nokia will help sell the winning applications through specific marketplaces and sales channels, both in the Asia Pacific region and worldwide.

The winning teams will also get a sponsored trip to the Mobile Application Summit, a two-day Forum Nokia event where developer members from around world meet with operators.

Country category winners received a cash prize of US$2,000 and a Nokia Series 60 device. The Series 60 licensing community, which includes Matsushita, Samsung, Sendo, Siemens and Nokia, represents approximately 60 percent of the total global mobile phone market, according to Kanjilal.

Symbian Series 60 competes with Palm OS, Linux and Microsoft's Smartphone and Pocket PC as operating systems for phones with PDA functions.

As cellphone downloads generate record revenues in Asia, Nokia is out to woo the region's developers over to its Symbian-based multimedia platform.

IT analysts Pyramid Research has said the Asian market leads the world in cellphone downloads. Downloads of software, wallpapers and ringtones are worth US$1.3 billion this year, growing to US$3.6 billion by 2008.

By 2006, analyst firm IDC expects that Symbian will have increased its global market share in high-end phones to 53 percent from its current 46 percent. Microsoft will have about 27 percent of the market, with Palm at 10 percent. IDC predicts that Linux could take as much as 4.2 percent of the market.