S60 Open to new features

With the introduction of Web services in S60 3rd Edition, enterprises (and also consumers) will be able to consume Web services end-to-end from the device to the various back-ends. For instance, mobile workforce can then with the help of Web services-enabled applications handle a number of tasks such as logistics, sales reporting, database searches, etc., directly from the device.

Furthermore, dedicated applications could be made available for services that already today use Web services protocols - many consumer-focused service providers on the World Wide Web are currently rolling out Web services as the enabling technology.

Web services are the protocols that enable Service-Oriented Architectures, and the SOA for S60 platform will initially focus on enabling end-to-end Web services, either as "vanilla Web services" with basic functionality, or more advanced Web services - for instance using Liberty Identity Web Services Framework (v1.1), which is the leading open protocol for Identity-based Web services.

But a SOA does not necessarily need to be enabled by means of Web services - for instance in the home environment, Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP) is a protocol that is increasingly used to inter-connect devices at home. S60 will also introduce support for UPnP in upcoming platform releases.

-BWi