Web SDK Packager to become open sourced under the MIT License

We are excited to announce that Sony Ericsson will be open sourcing the WebSDK Packager tool that allows for rapid development of applications for Symbian and Android devices. This will open up new opportunities for creating mashups to generate new GUI based tools as well as add new platforms. We believe this will enable continued innovation for web applications on mobile devices. The WebSDK Packager tool is based on the wildly popular open source tool called PhoneGap.

In the next few weeks, Sony Ericsson will be making the WebSDK Packager tool source code available, which will be contributed to the Open Source Community under the MIT license. Sony Ericsson believes that open sourcing WebSDK Packager tool will allow the developers to take advantage of the work that Sony Ericsson has done around web technologies. The tool is available for download today from the Web SDK Packager page of the Developer World web site.

For those not familiar with PhoneGap, it is an open source development framework for building cross-platform mobile apps that run on different mobile platforms including Android, Symbian, iPhone®, iPad®, Palm® and BlackBerry®. The PhoneGap open source code has been downloaded more than 250,000 times and there are thousands of PhoneGap-based apps in various platform stores.

If you’ve already got a mobile app built with Sony Ericsson WebSDK, or if you’ve got a mobile app idea in the works, enter your application in the Ericsson Application Awards 2011 contest. EAA 2011 is an exciting competition that allows developers to:

gain exposure for their applications within the telecom world
reach out to customers through Ericsson distribution channels
win cash awards and phones