Yahoo expands Blueprint for mobile apps...

Yahoo Inc. announced today at the CTIA trade show that it has expanded Blueprint, a mobile development platform, to allow developers to build applications for mobile devices running Java, Windows Mobile and Symbian operating systems.

Blueprint was previously available to create mobile widgets for Yahoo Go, a mobile application that first appeared two years ago.

Marco Boerries, executive vice president of Yahoo Connected Life, said Blueprint, which is available for free, allows a developer to write once and have an application run across many devices and operating systems to reach billions of users.

In a press conference, Boerries said Yahoo has generally followed a strategy of building "an ecosystem for billions of users ... that's why we didn't build an OS."

As such, Yahoo is expecting its services and advertising system to be available for all kinds of devices globally, he added.

Marc Davis, chief scientist at Yahoo Connected Life, said in an interview that Blueprint, which is based on XML, took five years to create. "Mobile applications have been laborious to build," he said.

Beoerries said Yahoo developers have been using Blueprint internally to build iPhone applications. Yahoo is also in discussions with Apple Inc. on ways to make Blueprint for iPhone available to other developers, he said.