Nokia chosen by Orange as one of the preferred suppliers for group-wide MMS (Back to News Reports)

4 September 2002 - Orange UK deployed Nokia's MMS for its commercial service, launched in August.

Nokia and Orange SA have signed a framework agreement for multimedia messaging service (MMS) systems. The three-year agreement gives Orange member companies the option to use Nokia's MMS infrastructure solution, as well as services for implementation, systems integration, consulting, support and maintenance to ensure and maintain the competitiveness of the MMS solution.

In addition, Orange UK has signed a contract with Nokia for the supply and roll out of its MMS system, which was commercially launched on August 12, 2002. Nokia is also in discussions with other individual Orange Group companies regarding the deployment of MMS across their networks.

"Orange customers will now have the opportunity to share information and send more personalized messages that combine images and sound, allowing them to reflect their individual style," says Alistair McCouig, head of OrangeWorld Engineering. "We are pleased to be rolling these new services using Nokia infrastructure, starting in the United Kingdom."

"MMS is the first true multimedia application of the mobile industry and a first step towards the third generation," says Pertti Melamies, Vice President, Nokia Networks. "We are excited to bring it to reality now with Orange, an operator recognized by the industry for its forward thinking and continuous development of wireless applications."

The Nokia MMS solution will enable Orange to provide rich messaging services to its customers. The multimedia messages can be sent between MMS-capable phones or even to legacy phones, thanks to the Nokia Multimedia Terminal Gateway. The Nokia solution provides content storage, voice messaging over MMS, intelligent connectivity to e-mail, and rich push/pull applications among other services.

The Nokia MMS solution also includes a wide portfolio of complementary solutions fulfilling a number of back-office operation requirements of operators, such as the profiling server, service activation solution, rating solution, streaming, and content downloading.

Source Nokia Press Release Back to News Reports

Ericsson to deploy a Wireless Village IMPS solution (Back to News Reports)

3 September 2002 - Ericsson announced the world's first commercial deployment of a Wireless Village based Instant Messaging and Presence Services (IMPS) solution to a mobile operator.

Ericsson is announcing both the availability and the first commercial deployment of its new Instant Messaging and Presence Services Solution (IMPS 2.0), based on the open standards of Wireless Village. This solution enables users to view other users' presence, send and receive Instant Messages and join community chats on their mobile handset. Ericsson's ongoing support of Wireless Village standardization work and delivery of IMPS 2.0 server and client products is further proof of Ericsson's commitment to open standards in the telecommunications industry.

By deploying Ericsson's IMPS solution based on open standards, mobile operators can resolve the interoperability issue of today's proprietary instant messaging systems. Ericsson IMPS allows mobile operators to offer advanced Instant Messaging and Presence Services across handsets, mobile devices and desktop clients - independently of device manufacturer.

"Current Instant Messaging services are primarily based on desktop users and incorporate non-interoperable, proprietary protocols," says Jan Lindgren, Vice President, Mobile Internet Solutions, Ericsson. "Ericsson's IMPS bridges the gap between mobile and fixed communities by ensuring messaging interoperability between Instant Messaging services, operators and different device types."

Ericsson has already seen strong operator demand for advanced messaging and presence enabled services. Ericsson has been chosen to commercially deploy its end-to-end IMPS 2.0 solution by a European 2/2.5/3G operator. The IMPS service includes advanced handsets with both downloadable and embedded clients for improved user experience.

SOURCE Ericsson Press Release Back to News Reports

mmO2 Launches Java Games (Back to News Reports)

30 August 2002 - mmO2 yesterday launched the O2 games arcade - the first commercial Java games service in the UK - bringing pictures, colour, sound and an arcade feel to mobile gaming. All O2 games arcade games will be free to UK customers for one month from 1 to 30 September 2002. The service will launch across the other O2 territories (Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands) from October.

A wide selection of games are offered within the O2 games arcade at launch, including Atari classics - Asteroids®, Pong® and Breakout®- plus MarslanderTM, Men in Black IITM, Denkiblocks!TM, OilrigTM, Racing FeverTM, Forbidden JungleTM, Pinball - The CastleTM, TurtlesTM, TowersTM, and PopstarTM. Around three new games a month will be added to the O2 games arcade. The Java-enabled Nokia 3410 is already available and proving very popular with youth audiences. The Siemens M50 will be available from 1 October, and a new range of Java-enabled devices, many of them colour, will be on sale pre-Christmas.

Racing Fever 1

Analysts forecast that gaming on mobiles will be big business, extending the role of the mobile phone beyond communications. Forrester Research predicts that, in three years, 45% of mobile subscribers in Europe will regularly pay to play games on their mobile. Ovum forecasts that global spending on mobile games will total €4.4 billion by 2006. O2's own research highlighted that, when shown games from the O2 games arcade, 65% of mobile owners aged 16-19 expressed a 'strong interest' in downloading them to their mobiles.

To date, the gaming market on mobile devices has been driven by SMS games. This year, more than four million games-related text messages per month have been sent over the O2 UK network driven by The World Cup, Big Brother 3 and 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire'. mmO2 is working with a number of game suppliers and developers, including Motorola, THQ, Digital Bridges, Macrospace, MR. Goodliving, Sumea, Picofun and Ifone to offer brands such as AtariTM and Men in Black IITM. As well as partnering leading branded suppliers, O2 will leverage its online application developer communities - including the 9,000 registered to sourceO2, mmO2's accelerator of mobile services - to create winning games of the future.

Men in Black

Price
All O2 games arcade games will be free to O2 customers until 30 September 2002. There will be a small additional 'download' charge dependent on tariff and file size - an average GSM charge is expected to be around 30 pence (€0.50). Thereafter, games will be charged on an 'event basis' similar to ringtones. Every game will cost £1.50 (€2.50), plus the download charge mentioned above. Once the customer has downloaded the game, it will remain active on their handset for at least 30 days and can be played as often as liked.

Availability
The O2 games arcade games are available to all customers on the O2 network (both pre and post paid), provided their Java-enabled mobile is supported by the O2 games arcade. Access to the O2 games arcade varies by device, but has been designed to be intuitive and similar to other such services.

SOURCE mmO2 Press Release Back to News Reports

J-PHONE Unveils Two New "Movie Sha-mail" Handsets (Back to News Reports)

Tokyo-J-PHONE Co., Ltd. ("J-PHONE") announced today it will offer two new Movie Sha-mail (video messaging) handsets from the beginning of October 2002, the J-SA51 (manufactured by Sanyo) and the J-SH52 (manufactured by Sharp). Movie Sha-mail is a service that enables users to send video clips of up to five seconds with sound as e-mail attachments.

The J-SA51 features the industry's largest built-in, one-inch STN LCD "Notification Display" and can take pictures at low light levels with its highly sensitive embedded CCD mobile camera. In addition, the J-SA51 can compress or expand ZIP files as well as send or receive them as e-mail attachments.

With the addition of the J-SA51 and the J-SH52 to J-PHONE's lineup, there is now a total of six Movie Sha-mail handsets available, thereby bringing the pleasures of the Movie Sha-mail service to even greater number of individuals.

The J-SH52 comes with new video and voice recording features compatible with SD memory cards which allow for longer recording times. The handset can also take pictures at VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixels) with its 310,000 pixel built-in CCD mobile camera. Camera functions are also greatly enhanced by a mobile light and an embedded color sub-display that can be used as a photo viewfinder.

SOURCE J-Phone Press Release Back to News Reports

Nokia and Korean Game Industry to Cooperate (Back to News Reports)

30 AUGUST 2002 - Nokia (NYSE:NOK), the global leader in mobile communications, and the Korea Game Development & Promotion Institute (KGDI), yesterday announced the signing of an agreement of mutual support for the development and deployment of Korean digital content for mobile communications.

The agreement will nurture one of Asia's fastest-growing games industries. Nokia will provide Korean developers with its matchless technical resources and aid in entering European and American markets.

As a part of the cooperation, Nokia will gain access to the leading-edge mobile game technologies and content being created through the support of KGDI - a unique government agency whose mission is to make the digital games industry to Korea what Hollywood is to the United States. KGDI operates a Game Academy to develop skilled game technologists, participates in research and development through its Games Research Center and invests in early-stage games companies through a venture capital arm.

KGDI officials see this relationship with Nokia as an opportunity to link up with the leading technology in the fast-growing mobile communications industry. With the continuing growth of wireless technology, KGDI officials expect games to become an increasingly important content component of mobile services.

Nokia and KGDI will conduct technical forums, share market information and provide Korean game developers early access to wireless equipment. Korean developers will also have access to Nokia Tradepoint, a business-to-business mobile services e-marketplace linking buyers and suppliers for trade in mobile applications and content. Nokia Tradepoint contains a wide spectrum of applications covering business, finance and entertainment. The service already lists approximately 500 games from 70 game companies around the globe.

SOURCE Nokia Press Release Back to News Reports