UIQ has announced its second ‘Open Application Competition’ for 2008 at today’s Symbian Smartphone Show. Aimed at finding some of the best new applications (and developers) in the UIQ ecosystem, the competition runs from today until the end of 2007 (December 31^st), where a jury of experts will judge the submitted applications.

Promoting the use of third party applications has long been a goal of UIQ, and after last years successful competition – with both Agilemobile and Dataviz being among the winning applications -  it was obvious that there would be a further competition this year.

The five categories (Business, Mobility, Lifestyle, Entertainment and Utilities) remain the same, and the winners can expect to receive a UIQ phone, marketing packages and invitations to UIQ events, with the winners announced in early 2008.

You’d have to expect the developers to already have UIQ devices, but the marketing package and promotion to be gained from being one of the successful applications is probably worth a lot more. More information on entering is at http://developer.uiq.com/uiqopen.html