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26 February 2004 - Zi Corporation of Canada, took the
SMS market a giant leap forward towards the massive
predicted increase in the global use of SMS when it
unveiled a unique dual language capability and demonstrated
its latest EziTap system at this week’s 3GSM World
Congress at Cannes in France.
Zi’s solutions already lie at the heart of more
than 400 different mobile phone models around the world.
The company showed its twin language offering for the
first time anywhere in the world and also the revolutionary
EziTap, which allows users to build their own text “dictionary”
in basic text input mode without needing to opt for
the predicted text offering on their handset.
Last year Ovum Research predicted that two trillion
messages would be sent each year by 2008, although the
industry believes that ease of use will be an important
factor in achieving such growth.
“Users like texting but they would text more often
if it was much more easy to use,” said Zi Corporation’s
UK-based European Director of Sales and Business Development
Terry Hughes.
“Many people find predictive texting too difficult
and what we have shown them here at 3GSM is the best
of both worlds – a system which helps with commonly
used words and in the process dramatically reduces the
number of key presses involved.
“Developments like this are vital in the drive
to empower more people with easier text capability and
to boost network operator revenue in the process.”
Dual Language allows the user to compose a message
in a combination of two languages using simultaneous
text entry and prediction. For example, it allows users
to text input in two languages without the need to change
menus. A user can compose a message in Spanish; then
compose the next message in English, or even compose
a single message with a mixture of languages.
Zi Corporation has 72 million handset units in the
market worldwide that use its technology. Its success
at 3GSM follows a similar story throughout 2003 when
on average, a new handset model incorporating Zi technology
was released every two days and eZiText was embedded
on all Alcatel One Touch phones.
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