Rhomobile, a provider of tools for enterprise smartphone applications, has released Rhodes 3.0, calling it the first native smartphone app framework.

In addition to support for near field communications (NFC) chips, the new version also includes Windows Phone (News - Alert) 7 and Windows CE support.

“We are the first solution to support Windows Phone 7 and NFC ensuring developers can support the next generation of smart devices today,” said Adam Blum (News - Alert), founder and CEO of Rhomobile.

Rhodes 3.0 now features the company’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE) – RhoStudio. Company officials say it provides integrated app generation, editing building, device emulation, and debugging.

“The RhoStudio IDE is on par with what corporate customers have come to expect when developing enterprise applications,” said Stephen Pillow, development director at Pariveda Solutions, adding that with its integrated debugging and no SDK install required run-time emulator, RhoStudio will make turnaround time for developing mobile apps much faster.

“RhoStudio will help us get traditional enterprise IT engaged around the modern smartphone that had previously been intimidated by the difficulties and delays associated with mobile programming,” said Pariveda.

In addition to supporting Windows Phone 7 development, Rhodes 3.0 also provides a modern HTML5-based approach to creating native device-optimized WP7 apps. Furthermore, it still allows instant portability to other phones and is touted an ideal alternative to using Silverlight and XAML for WP7.

Rhodes 3.0 enables developers to learn one API to develop and create apps that fully take advantage of NFC’s capabilities across all smartphones.

NFC chips are expected to be included in an array of upcoming mobile devices, including Google’s Nexus S 4G, RIM’s Bold 9900 and 9930, and Nokia’s (News - Alert) upcoming W7 Windows Phone 7 device.

Thanks to Rhodes’ open-source Ruby-based framework, developers can build native apps for all major smartphone operating systems such as iPhone, Windows Mobile, RIM, Symbian (News - Alert), and Android.

 “The smartphone revolution is here and Rhodes 3.0 provides developers with the essential app developer framework for keeping ahead of the market trends,” Blum said. Earlier in February, Rhomobile released enhancements of its Rhodes framework for building and delivering information-rich smartphone applications for the mobile enterprise.