jQuery, Microsoft, and Nokia

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We have two pieces of fantastic, albeit serendipitous, news today: Both Microsoft and Nokia are taking the major step of adopting jQuery as part of their official application development platform. Not only will they be using it for their corporate development but they will be providing it as a core piece of their platform for developers to build with.

Microsoft is looking to make jQuery part of their official development platform. Their JavaScript offering today includes the ASP.NET Ajax Framework and they’re looking to expand it with the use of jQuery. This means that jQuery will be distributed with Visual Studio (which will include jQuery intellisense, snippets, examples, and documentation).

Additionally Microsoft will be developing additional controls, or widgets, to run on top of jQuery that will be easily deployable within your .NET applications. jQuery helpers will also be included in the server-side portion of .NET development (in addition to the existing helpers) providing complementary functions to existing ASP.NET AJAX capabilities.

Nokia is looking to use jQuery to develop applications for their WebKit-based Web Run-Time. The run-time is a stripped-down browser rendering engine that allows for easy, but powerful, application development. This means that jQuery will be distributed on all Nokia phones that include the web run-time.

To start Nokia will be moving a number of their applications to work on the run-time (such as Maps) and building them using jQuery. jQuery will become part of their widget development platform, meaning that any developer will be able to use jQuery in the construction of widgets for Nokia phones.

Microsoft and Nokia aren’t looking to make any modifications to jQuery (both in the form of code or licensing) – they simply wish to promote its use as-is. They’ve recognized its position as the most popular JavaScript library and wish to see its growth and popularity continue to flourish.

In fact their developers will begin to help contribute back to the jQuery project by proposing patches, submitting test cases, and providing comprehensive testing against their runtimes. As with any contribution that comes in to the jQuery project it’ll be closely analyzed, reviewed, and accepted or rejected, based upon its merits, by the jQuery development team – no free ride will be given.

A significant level of testing will be added to the project in this respect. The jQuery test suite is already integrated into the test suites of Mozilla and Opera and this move will see a significant level of extra testing being done on Internet Explorer and WebKit – above-and-beyond what is already done by the jQuery team.

The whole jQuery team is quite excited by these prospects and wishes to take this opportunity to welcome both companies to the jQuery community. It’s phenomenal to see these two, major, corporations take the large step of using jQuery as a base for their, and their developers, future development. They will join a long list of happy jQuery users, including Google, Intel, IBM, Intuit, Reuters, and many others.

Update: Blogs posts by Scott Guthrie and Scott Hanselman, both at Microsoft, have posts on the subject matter from their perspective.

106 thoughts on “jQuery, Microsoft, and Nokia”

  3. Mustafa OZCAN on said:

    It’s very cool and good work for ASP.NET Developers. I gave to support for jQuery intellisense 1.2.6 in my blog and I have published jQuery intellisense for version 1.2.6 three months ago. From now on We will take the support from Microsoft for jQuery Intellisense. Thanks to John Resig and the jQuery Team.

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  10. Radu on said:

    I heard and read about jQuery, but never used it… but now, since Microsoft is planning to integrate jQuery within the ASP.NET AJAX framework, I think it’s worth playing with.
    Conclusion: Microsoft is still a power in this industry. Good job guys.

  12. CornishWooty on said:

    Congrats to the Team – an excellent result for jQuery. Who’s next on the takeover integration list?

  16. Chris on said:

    “They’ve recognized its position as the most popular JavaScript library”

    assertion(true);

    Big boost for jQuery though – good going!

  17. bunsen on said:

    I have been slowly infiltrating jQuery into every project I get near and this is just about the best piece of nerd-news I’ve heard in ages.

    Can’t wait!

  25. Craig Lebowitz on said:

    Great news.. John thanks for jQuery. Along with Asp.Net Mvc, it has made web development fun again for me

  26. Dietrich on said:

    Great news. Curious what this means for jQuery UI, which is sponsored by Liferay? Will it continue to be primary de facto widget library?

  27. Ric on said:

    John,
    I can not thank you enough for getting this done.
    I have always been in two worlds: as a .Net developer but wanting to work with other Ajax libraries. My dream of a true OpenAjax just took a major step forward thanks to you
    Ric

  33. Ty on said:

    I hope you made Mr. Bill dish up some serious scratch.
    My vote is for jQuery to rule the world, it should be any day now.

  38. mike kidder on said:

    wow… just wow…

    Attention Microsoft – if you are looking at a strong foundation for MSAJAX to over and get ExtJS. It will fit nicely right on top of that now supported JQuery goodness. Don’t delay, operators are standing by.

    :)

  39. Dave on said:

    When I go to the jQuery tests in my Nokia phone (E90, which has the WebKit-based browser), the browser closes with no errors. Sites with jQuery generally work fine on the browser though.

    The Nokia S60 browser is supposedly open source, but there haven’t been any documented changes in the code in over a year.

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  42. Pranav on said:

    This news is like a cool breeze in the hot summer….
    I was exploring for a light wieght Javascript library to augment existing ms Ajax library for my project and zeroed down to Jquery. It’s works superb for us……….

    Now with intelligence, controls it will be simple great!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  45. Jerome the Squid on said:

    That’s great news! Great distribution for JQuery with MS, I reckon. It is a good and welcome decision on their part to support and choose an existing library. It’s much easier for everyone! I hope they are committed to continuing to use the standard jquery and not doing anything weird.

    The nokia platform sounds nicer with this addition, as well. Grand!

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  47. SneakyWho_am_i on said:

    I was goign to express my joy at this news, but instead I ask what is it with these bad web designers who set a white background and forget to set a text colour!? Are you guys multiplying somehow? Bad bad bad!

  48. solomon kembo on said:

    Great news all the best to jQuery you deserve it. I now have a good reason to use Visual Studio. Viva jQuery

  49. Blender on said:

    IE6, 7, & 8 are the only MS-products i will ever use
    just to check if my sites are ok.
    Are you sure that MS is not going to make changes
    to jQuery and name it mQuery?

  50. Felipe Plets on said:

    Congratulation guys, you are doing a great job!!!
    I hope that M$ stay jQuery like we know =)