Nokia today announced plans to make Microsoft Silverlight available for S60 on Symbian OS as well as for Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets. Adding support for Silverlight will extend opportunities for developers to create rich, interactive applications that run on multiple platforms in a consistent and reliable way.

Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering next-generation media experiences and rich interactive applications. 

"There is clear market demand for rich, Web-based services across a variety of device types, but developing these can often be commercially difficult. For Microsoft this extends Silverlight to a broader range of vendors, platforms and devices.  For Nokia it expands the web runtime options on its devices, enabling a wider community of developers and more applications. This should help the  uptake of higher speed mobile services and advance a new era of anytime, anywhere device-based computing", said Bola Rotibi , Principal Analyst at Ovum.

Microsoft will demonstrate Silverlight on S60 during the opening keyote at Microsoft's MIX08 conference on March 5 in Las Vegas. Silverlight is intended to be available to S60 developers later this year with initial service delivery anticipated shortly thereafter for all S60 licensees. This will allow S60 application developers to use an even wider range of development environments for S60 on Symbian OS than today.

Microsoft Silverlight availability for Nokia Series 40 devices and Nokia Internet tablets will be confirmed later.