Nokia has disclosed its intention to encourage application developers in Nigeria to develop their skills using its proprietary platform – the Ovi Store.
Head of Solutions Sales, Praveen Shetty, said Nokia’s decision to support developers is based on the need to have a rich ecosystem of exciting locally-built applications to suit the needs of Nigerians.
Only two months ago, Nokia organised a free, three-day training session for over 200 Nigerian developers.
Shetty denied speculations that Nokia was on the verge of phasing out phones built on the Symbian platform. According to him, Nokia has actually developed new Symbian updates, which have greatly improved the user-interface of most Nokia phones.
He disclosed that the much-awaited Windows Phone 7 would hit some markets in the last quarter of this year.
Most of the participants at the training expressed delight at Nokia’s willingness to avail developers of their platform to build applications for phone users. They believe this will go a long way in reducing the level of unemployment in the country as young creative developers stand a chance of earning revenue from downloads on Ovi store.
Nokia’s new monetisation opportunities for developers are tailored for local markets and include integrated operator billing with 112 operators in 36 markets, more than 25 times more operator billing integrations than Nokia’s nearest competitor.
Ovi Store has seen integrated operator billing increase consumer transactions by up to four times and this, coupled with Nokia’s beta programmes for in-app billing and in-app advertising, means more revenue opportunities for developers on Symbian.
By Bimbo Omitooki
