SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Bling Software has announced the commercial launch of Active-Phone-Top; the industry's first widget based on-device-portal (ODP) solution for wireless operators based on the universal JavaScript authoring standard.

Unlike first generation ODPs that require web developers to learn complex proprietary languages, Bling Software lets developers use existing web programming standards and web servers. This approach makes it easy to create mobile widgets or re-purpose the thousands of widgets available on today's desktop web. And for the first time, makes it economically attractive for developers to create local market web content.

"Bling's JavaScript standards approach is different from other On-Device-Portal vendors," says Andreas Constantinou, CEO of research firm VisionMobile, "JavaScript is the prevailing development standard on the web, so any vendor that can enable it for mobile will be able to tap the vast amount of web content and re-purpose it much easier than proprietary ODP approaches."

In addition to easy enablement of web content, Bling Software also enables the richest mass-market consumer web experience possible. This is because other ODPs provide developers with only a few pre-packaged XML templates which don't allow access to underlying handset sub-systems (such as local file storage and the handset's camera, etc.) and therefore limit the resulting widget's functionality. Instead, Bling provides full JavaScript language support that allows for developers to exploit the handset's underlying resources; thereby enabling the most functionally rich widgets currently within the mobile industry.

"It's the consumers that are the ultimate beneficiary of our web standards approach," says Roy Satterthwaite, CEO and co-founder of Bling Software. "Not only does our approach promote rapid widget creation, including low cost development of local market web content, but our full JavaScript implementation combined with our integration of underlying handset subsystems also enables the most function rich application you can find on mass market handsets today."

The Bling Software Active Phone-Top is now available to mobile publishers and wireless operators for commercial use on Java and Brew based platforms as of this announcement. The solution includes:

• Widget Development Kit; a standards based authoring environment for widgets
• Hosted Service; a hosted widget catalog for consumers to choose widget content
• Phone-Top Client; a handset resident widget-browser for consumer use