Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge winners announced

Nokia today announced the winners in the Forum Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge global developer competition, awarding €100,000 in grand prizes to outstanding mobile applications developers for the best new applications based on the S60 3rd Edition.

Announced here on the eve of the annual Symbian Smartphone Show, taking place Oct. 17-19 at London’s Excel Centre, the S60 3rd Edition Challenge awards are co-sponsored by Forum Nokia, Nokia’s global developer support program, Adobe and Symbian, and culminate a 10-month selection process from among 117 entries in the categories of enterprise, music, Adobe Flash Lite and location-aware applications.

The winners announced today in each of the four categories will receive a €25,000 top prize and a one-year free membership in Forum Nokia PRO, an exclusive developer support program, valued at €4,000. Top winners in each of the four categories also receive a demo spot at NokiaWorld 2006, free on-site technical support and consultancy, devices and additional marketing support from software distributer Handango.

Selected by a jury comprised of representatives of Macromedia and Nokia Business units from among 20 finalists announced in September, the top award winners in each category include:

Best Enterprise Application: Quickoffice - Quickoffice Premier 4
Quickoffice is a world leader in providing mobile office document software for smartphones allowing users to open, view and edit Microsoft Office documents - at the point of need - with complete document data integrity. The company’s flagship product, Quickoffice Premier, allows users to view, edit, print and even present documents directly from their smartphone. The software design also includes the ability for end-users to receive future value-added applications to meet the evolving needs in the market.

Best Flash Application: Foreca - Flash Weather
Foreca is the largest private weather service company in the Nordic countries and through its highly-skilled staff of meteorologists and forecasting models developed by Foreca’s own software engineers guarantees state-of-the-art weather services for its clients around the world. Foreca’s FlashWeather applications feature mobile weather products that include: SpotWeather Forecasts, Current Conditions, Weather Radar, Temperature and Precipitation Forecasts and others.

Best Mobile Music Application: InfoTalk Corporation - Music Finder
InfoTalk Corporation, a leading provider of multi-lingual conversational speech understanding technology, envisions a world in which voice-enabled information access and transactions are available anytime, anywhere and via any fixed-line, mobile or PDA device. InfoTalk’s MusicFinder provides a fast and easy way to use voice commands rather than scrolling to search for music stored as mp3, AAC or other digital files. Users speak a song title, artist’s name or playlist in response to an audio prompt, and the stored audio file is passed to the mobile device’s default music player for listening.

Best Location-Aware Service/Application: Augmentra - ViewRanger
Augmentra Ltd delivers innovative solutions that maximise the opportunities offered by the convergence of mobile phone, imaging, and GPS technologies. Specifically created to match the needs of the active outdoor enthusiast, Augmentra solutions overcome the issues created by using mobile technology in a rural environment. ViewRanger(TM) is a unique mapping, navigation and information tool for mobile phones that provides information about immediate surroundings through a natural and intuitive display. With a Bluetooth GPS receiver connected, ViewRanger transforms a Nokia or other Symbian S60 smartphone into a fully featured trail navigation system.

Forum Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge runners up for each of the four competition categories will receive a one-year membership in the exclusive Forum Nokia PRO developer support program. They include:

Enterprise Applications:
1st Runner-Up: Thinprint - Content Beamer
2nd Runner-Up: HansaWorld - HansaWorld Enterprise

Flash Applications:
1st Runner-Up: Gideon - 06 World Cup
2nd Runner-Up: Refresh Mobile - Mobizines

Mobile Music Applications:
1st Runner-Up: N2N Consulting - M-Bit
2nd Runner-Up: inTouch Wireless Services - AirAlbum

Location-Aware Services & Applications:
1st Runner-Up: Aspicore - GSM tracker
2nd Runner-Up: Navicore - Navicore Personal