BANGALORE, INDIA: Finnish mobile handset major Nokia will fund four Indian software developers under its $10-million joint open screen project fund with Adobe for developing multi-screen infotainment applications, a company official said Monday.

Infotainment applications are information-based media content programmes.

The Indian firms and content aggregators, which will develop the four applications, are Bollywood Hungama, Eros Bollywood, India Today and Aaj Tak Videos.

"The applications, selected out of 900 entries from 60 countries across the world, will be available to consumers through our Ovi Store later this month," Nokia India managing director D. Shivakumar said at the Forum Nokia Developer Conference-2009 here.

Nokia also released the new software development kit for its series 40 mass market mobile devices to help developers create applications and services for the high-volume feature phone market worldwide.

The kit will also feature support for Indian regional languages such as Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi Tamil and Telugu.

"Mobile users are consuming more and more content daily. Considering that the next billion mobile users will be from emerging markets like India, our developers have the opportunity to not only shape local and global consumer mobile experiences, but also lead the mobile applications ecosystem," Shivakumar noted.

Nokia has about 180,000 local developers to leverage off its investments and the market opportunity to innovate and create new revenue opportunities for themselves.

"With the internet entering into the core of mobile experience, we see huge opportunities for local developers in shaping the future of mobile services," Forum Nokia vice-president Purnima Kochikar said on the occasion.

Nokia also showcased at the conference its latest Linux-based Maemo 5 OS (operating system) that will help deliver a true PC like experience.

The company will market and distribute applications developed on both Maemo and Symbian platforms through its Ovi Store globally.

About 650 developers from across the country attended the conference.

Nokia's open screen project fund has been designed to accelerate development of applications, content and services that leverage the Adobe Flash Platform and run across mobile, desktop and consumer electronics handsets.

©IANS