CTIA — which is simultaneously my most and least favorite wireless trade show of the year — begins tomorrow. Looking to drum up a bit of interest before the show starts, Nokia is hosting a “Developer Day” gathering right down the block.
Thought its mostly dev-focused, you can’t bring a bunch of execs into a room to talk about their products without at least a little bit of news coming out. One of the more interesting bits: Come December, Nokia says they’ll be launching both an In-App Purchase system Beta for Ovi, and their very own In-App Advertisement solution.
Details are still a bit sparse, but we’ll try to dig up some more. Nokia will undoubtedly try to leverage their carrier-billing agreements here, making In-App Purchase all the more enticing.
Both of these endeavors could be pretty important for Nokia. Hardware sales have come to depend on third-party applications, and that requires a big developer following. Getting developers to build for your store is all about showing them the money — and for developers of free applications, that just hasn’t happened yet on Ovi.