Nokia and AT&T have announced the 2010 Calling All Innovators – North America developer contest, offering a US$10 million prize fund to be shared between successful applicants. In addition to votes from Nokia and AT&T, the companies said that winning apps will be selected “for the first time, by consumers who can use their downloading power to indicate their favourites.” It is open to developers globally, as long as they are creating apps for North American customers, and products will be available “exclusively for download via the Ovi Store.” The prize fund is split US$4 million in cash prizes, and US$6 million in promotion by Nokia and AT&T in North America.

The elephant in the room is Nokia’s extremely weak position in North America, especially in smartphones, where it is outclassed by BlackBerry, iPhone and Android-powered devices. Even AT&T, Nokia’s co-sponsor in the challenge, shows lukewarm support: although it was a founder member of the Symbian Foundation, its online store currently lists a single Nokia smartphone, and that is not a current unit: the aging E71x is available in “refurbished” guise. The company does have another Symbian OS device in its portfolio, in the shape of Sony Ericsson’s Vivaz, however. The picture is not massively improved in Canada. For a developer looking to do business in North America, there are a number of platforms that provide a more lucrative opportunity than Symbian OS, regardless of the prizes offered by Nokia and AT&T. Purnima Kochikar, VP of Forum Nokia, played up the international possibilities, stating that “developers can make their Qt-based app available in Ovi Store to Nokia customers globally reaching tens of millions of customers.”

As if to narrow the addressable market further, Nokia is looking for apps for the Symbian^3 powered N8 smartphone, which is not currently available through any US operator, and has yet to become available in volume elsewhere. While Nokia has announced a family of devices powered by the OS, these will not reach the market until the end of 2010, meaning it will be some time before a sizable user base is available.

Nokia pointed out the most appropriate paths for developers using other platforms to transition to writing for Symbian^3, as a way of promoting the fact that existing skills can be re-used to write apps for Nokia products. Symbian, Android and iOS developers were pointed toward Nokia’s Qt SDK, which was described as “the new way to build powerful native apps for Symbian^3, Maemo, and in the future, MeeGo.” Web developers can use Nokia’s Web Runtime Plug-Ins, including Adobe Flash Lite 4. And BlackBerry and Java developers can uses Nokia’s Java runtime, which is also supported by the company’s mass market feature phones.

The competition is open until the end of January 2011, and applications can be made in 17 categories. The number of free and paid-for downloads made by customers will count as part of the winning criteria, although the final judging will be by Nokia and AT&T. The companies are promoting their efforts at the CTIA Enterprise and Applications event, where they are holding a “special tour of Qt and Nokia Web Runtime and Java tools.” Developers can also receive a “complementary Nokia N8 developer pack.”