There are approximately 5,323 third party Symbian applications commercially available today, an increase of 29 percent from the same period a year ago. Although Symbian still isn't that well known in the U.S., it is the most popular smartphone platform in the world by a wide margin, having shipped on over 100 handsets to more than 82.8 million people; 12.3 million in Q2 2006 alone.

The majority of available third-party Symbian applications are built for Nokia's S60 interface. Unlike Windows Mobile or Palm smartphones, for example, the Symbian OS requires a second layer to provide some functionality, but also the look, and feel of a device. To use a housing metaphor, Symbian is the foundation, plumbing, and electrical system, while the interface is the furnishings and appliances, and the hardware is the frame upon which the smartphone is built.

To encourage S60 software development, Forum Nokia (the Finnish phone-maker's developer site and support program), in association with Adobe, launched the S60 3rd Edition Challenge last December. The goal of the competition, which is comprised of four categories - enterprise, music, Adobe Flash Lite and location-based applications - is to drive the development of innovative new apps for the latest version of the S60 platform, according to Nokia.

Four winners receive 25,000 Euros (about 32,085 dollars) each. In addition, champions and runners up in each category get a free year long membership (worth 4,000 Euros - around 5,133 dollars) to Forum Nokia PRO, demo spot at a Nokia event, free on-site technical support and consultancy, devices and additional marketing support from Handango.

Twenty finalists have been chosen out of 117 entries. The winners will be announced on October 17th. Finalists include:

    Enterprise Applications

    HansaWorld                        HansaWorld Enterprise
    Intellisys s.r.l.                 Argus Remote Surveillance
    Quickoffice                       Quickoffice Premier
    Thinprint                         Content Beamer
    WiB-Software                      Punch2Go

    Location Aware Applications

    Agis Pte Ltd                           Navfone
    Aspicore                               GSM tracker
    Augmentra                              ViewRanger
    Epocware, Paragon Software Group       Handy Weather
    Navicore                               Navicore Personal

    Mobile Music Applications

    InfoTalk Corporation                     MusicFinder
    inTouch Wireless Services Pte Ltd.       AirAlbum
    ITFinity                                 Ringtone Shuffle
    N2N Consulting Pte Ltd.                  M-Bit
    VAKA*                                    EmoStation

    Adobe Flash Lite Applications

    Design Assembly                   Bobby Bumper
    Foreca                            Flash Weather
    Gideon                            06 World Cup
    Refresh Mobile                    Mobizines
    Telecom Italia                    TIM Pocket Care

Symbian's American profile may raise signficantly when Cingular introduces the Nokia E62, a slim commuicator built in the mold of RIM's BlackBerry, Palm's Treo and Motorola's Q. The E62 runs on Nokia's S6O platform, of course.

The E62 could cost as low as $99 with a contract.

Although it won't feature Wi-Fi or 3G cellular-wireless like its E61 cousin, which has been released in Europe, the E62 will feature a four-way joystick, 235 MHz processor, wide 2.8-inch 320 x 240-pixel resolution & 16 million color screen, 90 MB of internal memory, Bluetooth, miniSD slot for up to 2GB of extra memory and USB connectivity.

It weighs around 5 ounces and measures 4.61 x 2.76 x 0.63 inches; slightly larger than a Q, but smaller than a Treo.

The QWERTY thumb-keyboard appears to be a little different than the E61's, adding a My Own button; a user-configurable shortcut key found in Series 80 smartphones like the Nokia 9500 and 9300.

The smartphone supports a number of different wireless e-mail options, including Intellisync, Good's GoodLink, DataViz's RoadSync for Microsoft Exchange servers and push e-mail, Consilient, Cingular's XpressMail (Visto), and - most eye-opening of all - BlackBerry Connect, a service that delivers RIM's personal or enterprise e-mail and data access to devices other than BlackBerrys.

So IT managers get another smartphone to choose from for delivering mobile messaging and applications to users through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

It also appears another high-profile Nokia handset may soon find its way to the U.S., the N80. Originally released as a multimedia smartphone, a new edition was introduced recently called the N80 Internet Edition. Rumors say a version of this smartphone was seen in the wild with a Cingular logo.

Like the earlier version, the Internet edition should have a high resolution 2.1 inch, 352 x 416 pixel 262,144 color display and incorporate a MPEG4 AVC decoding support for video streaming.

There's 40 MB of memory and a miniSD card additional storage. The Nokia N80 boasts a digital music player as well as stereo FM radio. And users can transfer data via USB 2.0 by dragging and dropping from a compatible PC onto the device.

The device measures 3.7 x 2 x 10.2 inches and weighs 4.7 ounces.