During World Wide Web Consortium's Mobile Web Initiative event, Opera Software has announced a beta software development kit (SDK) for its mobile phone Web browser and user interface package, called Opera Platform. The company hopes that this way it will make mobile applications easier for developers to create and cheaper for the end user.

The benefit of all this is that applications based on the Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) standard will be easier to port from desktop systems to mobile phones.

Opera Platform has been available on the market for the past two years and has been used by developers to create front-end solutions for mobile phones, based on the native interface. This Software Development Kit version will help developers create applications in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, installed locally on the phone.

The Opera Platform also enables developers to access the native features of the phone that otherwise can't be accessed, like the address books or the ability to send SMS.

The AJAX phenomenon received a solid push forward as Google launched the Google Maps service. By transferring only XML-encoded data, rather than entire Web pages, AJAX applications can be much more interactive.