San Jose, CA — (press release excerpt) — Trolltech today launched a worldwide developer contest to help generate applications for the Sharp Zaurus SL-5000D, the first PDA from a major power in consumer electronics to ship with embedded Linux. Prizes include $10,000 cash (USD), Sharp Zaurus SL-5000D PDAs, Laptops, television, and stereo equipment. The contest, scheduled to run from December 4, 2001 to February 11, 2002, will offer prizes to applications in five categories: games, entertainment/educational, business, system tools, and communications.

Trolltech has chosen three Linux luminaries to help judge the applications:

• Jerry Epplin, Technical Editor for LinuxDevices.com
  
• Jason Perlow, Senior Technical Editor for Linux Magazine
  
• Warwick Allison, Lead embedded developer for Trolltech

Trolltech is also giving away free preview editions of the Qtopia SDK (formerly called the “Qt Palmtop Environment”), which is used to create freeware, shareware, and commercial applications for the SL-5000D. All contest entrants-and owners of SL-5000Ds-are entitled to the free preview edition. Qtopia is built on Qt, Trolltech's cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit. This allows developers to create applications on the Windows, Linux/Unix, and Mac OSX desktop. All applications created in the Qt framework can be ported to the SL-5000D with a simple cross-compile.

“We thought this would be a great way to help introduce the world to the Zaurus, to embedded Linux, and to Qtopia, our newly-named application environment,” says Haavard Nord, Trolltech's CEO. “These technologies give users the first viable 'Third Way' in PDA computing, and we are very happy to have been chosen by Sharp to provide the GUI framework, windowing system, and application environment for this device.”

For more information, including the entry form, contest rules, and judging criteria, please visit contest.trolltech.com.

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