Russell Beattie

This is very cool. I stumbled across this by accident looking for WAP stuff on Nokia's site - just today Nokia and Borland have released a limited, but fully stocked, version of Borland's C++ Mobile Edition with integrated Series 60 libraries. Check out Nokia's Download page here, and more info about C++ Mobile Edition from Borland here.

The Borland C++ Mobile Edition for Series 60, Nokia Edition enables application development for devices based on the Series 60 platform using C++. This complete toolkit includes a restricted version of the Borland C++Builder Version 6 Personal Edition which is optimized for the rapid development of native Nokia Series 60 applications. The kit also includes the Series 60 SDK version 0.9, Nokia Edition, a Perl environment and Java runtime as well as the C++ Mobile edition plug-in from Borland. The SDK includes a Series 60 device emulator and Nokia as well as Symbian example sources.

The C++ Mobile plug-in for the C++Builder IDE provides direct and seamless access to the external SDK building tools via the project building process or single explicit calls from the menu and additional information and help files which will be available directly from inside the IDE environment. This tool supports the full development cycle including source code editing with a comfortable C++ aware Code Editor, the compiling and building process, local debugging and also direct deployment to an actual device through Nokia PC Connectivity Suite. Existing Series 60 SDK projects can easily be imported and for new applications the mobile Project wizard automatically generates an already working code framework which can be used as the basis for any kind of native Series 60 applications.

Technical requirements:
Intel Pentium II/400 MHz or compatible
Windows 2000 (SP2) or Windows XP
128 MByte RAM (256 MByte or more recommended)
1 GByte or more free disk space (full install)

This is pretty great. I'm not particularly familiar with Borland's C++ tools, but their Java stuff isn't bad (if a bit bloated). I'd like to know a bit more about what "limited" means, but beyond that this is a great way to start developing with Symbian without having to pony up cash for CodeWarrior or MS VC++.

Great Job Nokia! Keep the Free Tools Coming!

-Russ