Sony Ericsson Confirms Commitment to Share Project Capuchin with Developer Community and Unveils Project Capuchin SDK

On September 3, 2008, Sony Ericsson unveiled the new Sony Ericsson Beta SDK for Windows Mobile® 6.1 to enable developers to create XPERIA™ Panels and applications for Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1 phone. XPERIA Panels can be Native or Web (HTML) and the new SDK includes an X1 emulator, Microsoft® Visual Studio® IDE plug-in and templates, documents and sample code for the quick development, testing, debugging and deployment of these panels.



Sony Ericsson Developer World also offers XPERIA Panels testing and signing information and a new Windows Mobile moderated discussion forum. XPERIA Panels will also have a dedicated category in the upcoming Sony Ericsson Content Awards 2008.

XPERIA Panels
Personalization is one of the hottest topics in the mobile phone industry today. The ability to fit relevant and contextual information in a timely manner on the mobile phone screen is key for convergence scenarios. XPERIA Panels introduce a unique, more distinct way of interacting with content through the phone's UI, allowing end-users to personalize their desktop screen.

XPERIA Panels are lightweight applications that extend the Today Screen API in order to provide a full-screen, immersive experience giving a configurable, finger-tip navigation to access different options through panels displayed on the phone's desktop.

SDK with X1 emulator and Microsoft Visual Studio templates
The SDK features a built-in true XPERIA X1 phone device emulator allowing you to run, test and debug panels locally on your computer without needing phone hardware.

To save time and resources so you can get started quickly, integration with Microsoft Visual Studio means you can use predefined Native and Web (HTML) Panel templates to create basic project containers and a preliminary set of panel items.

Panel testing and signing information
Mobile2Market is the Microsoft certification program for testing and signing Windows Mobile applications and should be used for Windows Mobile applications for the Sony Ericsson X1. However, the testing and signing of XPERIA Panels is different and panels should not be certified though the Mobile2Market program.

Windows Mobile discussion forum
Free technical support from the Sony Ericsson Developer World team and advice from fellow developers about XPERIA Panel creation is available in our new Windows Mobile discussion forum. All website visitors can read the threads and registered Community Members can actively participate by posting questions and answers.

Sony Ericsson Content Awards 2008
Taking 2007's Sony Ericsson Content Awards a step further, the 2008 awards are open to all third-party development and content creation companies. There are seven categories, one of which is specifically for XPERIA Panels. Submission opens mid-September 2008 and so you can prepare, here is a list what you will need to supply.