Chapter 1. Introducing Nokia's Software Platform

One of the world's largest providers of smartphones, Nokia is at the heart of a global ecosystem of devices, services, and applications. With this success comes diversity. A handset that sells successfully in the United States or Europe may be too expensive to sell in developing markets, and a phone inexpensive enough in developing markets may seem primitive by the standards in Europe or the United States. This diversity can lead to fragmentation; fortunately, Nokia is well aware of this and responds to the threat of fragmentation with software development platforms that span product lines.

In this chapter, we take a brief look at Nokia's hardware and software platforms. Once you understand the platforms that Nokia offers, we discuss application distribution options when targeting Nokia products. After reading this chapter, you should be able to select the appropriate Nokia platform for your application and understand how you will deliver your application to others.