Red Five Labs's .NET CF clone is said to have been engineered from the ground up to target the Symbian OS. Based on open ECMA/ISO standards, it is binary-compatible with Microsoft's .NET CF 1.0, and initial tests indicate comparable performance, the company claims.
The framework initially supports the original Nokia Series 60 devices, in addition to N and E Services, Red Five Labs says. The company also plans to support the UIQ platform, which will make it compatible with a wide range of Sony Ericsson and Motorola devices.
According to Red Five Labs, Symbian has shipped over 100 million smartphones, representing over 100 different phone models, resulting in the largest market share by far among "converged devices" worldwide. Although application developers can target these devices using Java, Python, Ruby, or Adobe Flash, the most powerful and likely language used, the company says, is the Symbian C++ language.
However, Red Five Labs explains, Symbian C++ has characteristics -- such as descriptors and memory management -- that make it difficult for software developers to easily create new mobile applications. The new .NET CF support will be beneficial in that it eliminates the need for developers bo be concerned with the subtleties of the Symbian OS, the company suggests.
The .NET Compact Framework for S60 CTP will shortly be available for download from the
Red Five Labs website, according to the company. Pricing was not disclosed.
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