Symbian selects SysOpen Digia Plc as the technology provider for Symbian Signed pre-certification tool

SysOpen Digia Plc announced today that Symbian Limited has selected SysOpen Digia's technology for enabling automated pre-testing of applications against the Symbian Signed Test Criteria. Under the agreement, SysOpen Digia will provide a testing solution using their Quality Kit product family which enables the Symbian developer community to verify that their application has reached industry-agreed quality requirements prior being submitted to be Symbian Signed with an independent test house.

SysOpen Digia Plc
Seppo Laaksonen, Senior Vice President, SysOpen Digia Plc says: "As Symbian Signed is an industry standard program endorsed by major companies, we are proud to provide our technology to this program. This is a milestone for the smartphone software industry and for SysOpen Digia testing tools and technologies. The entire Symbian ecosystem can now have access to a robust testing tool, which will make it easier and faster for developers to test their applications to the required Symbian Signed standard."

Symbian Ltd
Bruce Carney, Head of Developer Marketing & Services, Symbian Ltd says: "We are working closely with SysOpen Digia and our licensees to refine the Symbian Signed process for our developers. Since Symbian Signed was launched over a year ago, Symbian has worked with the industry to drive test costs down by 75%. This free automated testing tool, AppTest Lite, will further support Symbian developers through the Symbian Signed process by keeping costs low and assuring the quality of the many innovative Symbian OS applications in the marketplace"

With this agreement, Symbian Signed delivers a solution that provides the entire industry with common guidelines and quality criteria for developing and commercialising Symbian OS smartphone applications. An easy to use testing solution will verify whenever an application has reached industry level quality criteria. The overall objective of Symbian Signed is to ensure that the industry will meet end-user expectations by providing reliable and robust applications for their smartphones.

The solution will automate the test requirements set by the Symbian Signed Program (test criteria are available in English from: Symbian Signed Requirements. The solution is expected to be available in late Q3 and will be downloaded from the Symbian Signed Solution and is free of charge. It will also be demonstrated at . The testing solution will support Series 60 and UIQ-based smartphones.

About Symbian

Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS™, the global open industry standard operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones.

Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world's leading handset manufacturers and has built close co-operative business relationships with leading companies across the mobile industry. In the first half of 2005, more than 14.5 million Symbian OS-based mobile phones were sold worldwide to over 200 network operators, taking the installed base of Symbian OS phones to almost 40 million.

Symbian has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom with offices in the United States, Europe (Cambridge, UK and Ronneby, Sweden (UIQ Technology AB), Israel and Asia (Bangalore, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo).

About SysOpen Digia Plc

SysOpen Digia Plc is a leading integrator of information and communication solutions, providing engineering services, software solutions, training and consulting for enterprises, smartphone manufacturers, operators, public organisations and associations internationally.

SysOpen Digia provides a complete end-to-end offering for both smartphone and information systems development. The company is based in Finland, operating globally and employing over 800 professionals. SysOpen Digia's pro forma turnover reached 64.1 million euros in 2004, and the company is listed on the Helsinki Exchanges.

About QualityKit

Quality Kit is targeted for Symbian OS project managers, software developers and testing engineers. By providing a tool for automated testing, ranging from unit and module up to functional testing, to the Symbian OS software development community, SysOpen Digia aims at assisting device manufacturers and software developers to achieve both high software quality and time-to-market requirements.

About Symbian Signed Program

Symbian Signed Program promotes best practice in designing applications to run on Symbian OS phones. Symbian Signed applications follow industry-agreed quality guidelines and support network operator requirements for signed applications. Symbian Signed is run by Symbian, and is endorsed and supported by network operators and Symbian OS licensees.

Media Enquiries

Seppo Laaksonen Senior Vice President SysOpen Digia Plc +358 40 8230 709 seppo.laaksonen@sysopendigia.com

Jarkko Virtanen Director, Communications SysOpen Digia Plc +358 40 7593 603 jarkko.virtanen@sysopendigia.com