Mariam Dholkawala's Forum Nokia Blog

Adobe Announcements at the Mobile World Congress February 2009

2009-02-19T23:50:39+02:00

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain is one of the biggest events in the mobile world. Anyone related to the field of wireless, be it mobile developers, technology leaders, OEMS, carriers, aggregators, mobile tools providers etc, all descend on to this little world in Fira Barcelona to discuss the next BIG thing in Wireless.

I had the opportunity to be there this year, and it was memorable for several reasons. I got to meet and talk to some really bright people, discuss business opportunities, witness quite a few new platforms and devices, do a presentation at the Symbian Foundation booth and participate (and be selected as the best contributor in the Mak'n Money discussion) in discussions on the last day of the event with WIP JAM.

As far as the announcements are concerned, there were many, but those Adobe and Nokia related were probably of the most relevent to me.

Adobe today, is living upto it's commitment of last year in focusing on the Mobiles area. This time in MWC, Adobe made several announcements which developers may find extremely exciting and motivating to take it forward as a platform to look forward to in 2009.

So what were the key points announced during this event? The answer is several of them and they are all listed below -

Flash shipped on 1 Billion devices (cummulative): Flash Lite shipped on 40% of all new handsets in 2008

Public beta of the Distributable Player Solution - the ability to distribute mobile apps with the latest Flash Lite 3.1 runtime. The regions include US, Spain, Italy, UK and yes India too (reason to celebrate because devs can now monetize from their apps)

Launch of Featured Applications from leading content providers at m.adobe.com (live now)

The Flash Lite Developer Challenge - a contest with cash prizes totaling $100,000

The Open Screen Project Fund - a $10 Million market development fund open to developers worldwide. You are invited to submit your ideas, which will then be taken up by the OSP commitee

Palm joining the Open Screen Project and intends to ship with Flash 10 devices

Nokia too announced their OVI Store, allowing developers to publish and sell their content through Nokia's global application market.

I hope to write about the announcements and my experience a little more in detail in the coming posts...but for now there is already a lot to look forward to :)

Mariam

Gear Wager - Flash Lite Game nominated for IMGAwards

2008-10-28T09:08:59+02:00

Announced yesterday were the nominees for the 5th IMGAwards, and I am happy to say that my Flash Lite game - Gear Wager makes it amongst the top 5 in the Best Casual Game Category.

Gear Wager is a fun casual arcade game woven around a story on the Flash Lite platform. The game is unique in various ways (you have to wait for it to launch ), but I’d like to say that with this game, I’ve tried pushing the boundaries of the technology and platform. Gear Wager is expected to launch early next year, but before that I hope it emerges a winner in this award show.

IMGAwards are prestigious and being a part of their nomination is definitely an honor for any mobile game development company, including mine. This year IMGA received hundreds of entries out of which 26 are selected in 5 different categories. The nominations are extremely competitive this year with the best in the industry being chosen by a jury from the wireless industry. This year's official sponsors are Nokia and Movida (Japan). Co-sponsors are Euromediterranee, AMD and ARM.

Inauguration of the Blog

2008-10-13T08:43:54+03:00

A hello to all at Forum Nokia. This happens to be my first blog post, so I hope to share a little about myself and my work.

To introduce myself, my name is Mariam Dholkawala, a games developer based out of Mumbai, India. Professionally I am a Founder and Technical Head of a gaming startup called IGameStudio.com. Personally I manage my own blog which talks about all the happenings in the mobile world.

I may not have always been involved with the mobile platform for game development, but it was the launch of the Adobe Flash Lite player for mobiles that got me interested. Since then, I have contributed to various community activities for both Adobe and Forum Nokia. To sum up some of my contributions -

Adobe India Community Champion
Adobe Community Expert - Mobiles and Devices
Advisory Board of the Adobe Mobiles and Devices Learning Resources Program
IndiMaD User Group Manager - India Adobe Mobiles and Devices User Group
Award Winner at 3 Flash Lite Game Contests
Contributor to Technical Articles on the Adobe Mobiles and Devices Devnet
Speaker at various conferences
Contributor on the Forum Nokia Discussion Boards and Wiki

Now after 4 years and loads of games on the mobile platform, I would say it has been a fairly exciting journey and hope it just gets better as Adobe powers the Flash Lite player and Nokia comes out with even more powerful handsets with better Flash Lite interaction.

To sum up this post, I would say it is great to see Flash Lite rocking on Nokia phones making Forum Nokia a hub to interact with co-developers/peers on Flash Lite and various other technologies :) I hope to keep posting about my experiences of Flash Lite with the S60 and S40 platforms over the weeks.

Mariam