Sony Ericsson emphasised its continued commitment to Symbian OS today with the announcement of its next generation smartphone to the global development community. The P990 will be the first commercially available smartphone to adopt the enhanced Symbian OS version 9.1 and UIQ 3 software platform. This flagship UMTS smartphone is Wi-Fi enabled, has a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus and features a new hardware keyboard beneath the flip-down keypad. The phone will start shipping during Q1 of 2006.

Other new features include automatic time zone change to the Calendar diary and updated PC sync software with extended synchronization possibilities. Additionally the 2 Megapixel camera with autofocus, digital zoom, photo light plus the bright TFT screen and video recording provide a high quality imaging experience.

In a separate announcement today, Sony Ericsson Developer World and UIQ Technology outlined their plans to support UIQ 3 developers.

Developers can program in C++ or Java to create powerful professional and personal productivity tools for the P990. The smartphone is based on Java Platform 3 (JP-3). It supports four new Java Specification Requests (JSR's) including Web Services (JSR-172) and is the twentieth phone from Sony Ericsson supporting Mobile Java 3D, demonstrating the company's leadership in this new technology. Standard Java applications can be run with either the flip-down keypad open or closed.

The P990 will be commercially available in Q1 2006. The variants will be:

• P990i Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) - GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa
• P990c Dual mode UMTS (2100MHz) - GPRS 900/1800/1900 for Mainland China. Launch for mainland China dependant on availability of 3G services.
• The P990 will be available in 4 hardware keyboard variants: QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY and Russian