724 Solutions Extends Reach Into IP-Based Messaging Services with New Applications Suite
724 to demonstrate Thulean live as it bridges pre-IMS PoC service to MMS, SMS, IM, email or voice at 3GSM World Congress
Santa Barbara, CA, (February 8, 2006) - 724 Solutions (NASDAQ: SVNX; TSX: SVN), a leading provider of next-generation IP-based network and data services today announced a new product, code named "Thulean" that will bridge the gap between next generation and legacy messaging and content management services. 724's Thulean extends the reach of pre-IMS and IP/IMS messaging services back to a subscriber's communities and legacy devices through SMS, MMS, IM, email and voice. Thulean's initial application suite extends the reach of pre-IMS Push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) to SMS, MMS, IM, email and voice and will be demonstrated live at 3GSM World Congress 2006 in Barcelona, Spain.
In 724's Unwired Lifestyle™ vision, Thulean allows mobile service providers to deliver a seamless and intuitive customer experience that empowers, engages and connects the subscriber base by bridging the different standards-based messaging protocols enabling two-way communication between parties. For example, with Thulean, a PoC subscriber will be able to send and receive talk bursts to and from MMS, SMS, IM, email and voice users, with the underlying technology remaining invisible to the end-users.
"Thulean is the next step towards fulfilling our Unwired Lifestyle™ vision," said Michael Luna Chief Technology Officer at 724 Solutions. "By bridging the gap between next generation and legacy networks and services, we fundamentally change the service providers' business model, accelerating the ROI, while preserving and protecting their most important asset, their installed base of subscribers and their established communities."
Accelerate Return-On-Investment (ROI) As new next generation services are deployed, a major challenge facing service providers is accelerating the ROI for such a service that requires participating subscribers to acquire a new device that fully supports this capability. 724's Thulean will allow service providers to accelerate the ROI of new services by including the entire installed base as part of the reachable community for the service.
Extend the Reach of Instant Communications
724's Thulean extends the reach of PoC to SMS, MMS, IM, email and voice. Thulean can also extend the reach of the IM community to SMS, MMS, PoC, email and voice. As the community is exposed to the newer services, data services usage and services revenues can grow and service adoption is accelerated.
Enrich Services
724's Thulean enrichs services such as posting a PoC talk burst, IM, voice message, voice MMS to a voice blog that can then be shared privately with select individuals or available to the public. Thulean enhances the PoC experience by adding multimedia content such as animated pictures with sound (referred to as "Tickle Services") to other PoC users, personalizing the conversation and increasing services revenues.
Technology Transparency Means Relevant, Contextual ID Management
The key to preserving communities is to bridge the gap between the legacy and new services and networks, ensuring technology transparency. By obfuscating the technical complexity from the subscriber, a seamless and intuitive end user experience will allow subscribers to take the new services for granted. 724's Thulean and Golden Gate uniquely deliver contextual ID management, making the service experience relevant to the subscriber and device being used. For example, during a messaging exchange, each subscriber only need know the other person's ID relevant to the client application they are using, Thulean and Golden Gate manage the challenge of multiple identities or addresses (mobile number, email address, IM address) to ensure transparent communications as the conversation seamlessly moves between PoC, MMS, SMS, IM or email.
724's Thulean adds interconnectivity to pre-IMS and IP/IMS messaging services to 724's Multimedia Application Gateway (AGW), which already offers a rich suite of bridging applications for MMS. Built on 724's X-treme Framework, Thulean will provide an extensible carrier-class, reliable, scalable and fault tolerant platform supporting both standards-based and proprietary push over cellular solutions, enabling customers with existing PoC deployments to reap immediate benefits from bringing the communities together.
Live Thulean demonstrations can be experienced at 724's hospitality suite at 3GSM World Congress, Barcelona, located at HS09, Hall 3, Gallery Level.
About 724 Solutions
724 Solutions delivers intelligent any-to-any service message and traffic handling solutions built upon a common carrier-grade architecture that allows mobile network operators and virtual network operators to rapidly deploy flexible and open next generation IP-based network and data services. The company's solutions enable the Unwired Lifestyle™, 724's vision of seamless communication without barriers; a vision of how subscribers will use mobile data services to enhance and enrich their professional and private lives with services relevant to their specific needs, with user communities preserved across generations of technology and with data services as reliable and ubiquitous as voice services. 724 Solutions is a global company headquartered in Santa Barbara, California and with development centers in Canada, Switzerland and India. 724 Solutions is privately owned by Austin Ventures. For more information, visit www.724.com.
This press release contains statements of a forward-looking nature. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include the statements herein regarding: the services and products that will be offered by 724 Solutions, the benefits that businesses will obtain from these services and products, and the revenues that we will generate from these products. The accuracy of these statements may be impacted by a number of business risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated, including the risk that 724 Solutions will be unable to deploy the solutions and products stated herein and other risks described in 724 Solutions' Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including its annual report on Form 10-K and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. These risks are also described in 724 Solutions' filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators. 724 Solutions does not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information, except as required under applicable law.
For more information, contact:
Avichai Levy, VP Marketing Mobixell Networks
Tel: +972 544 666 785
Avichai.levy@mobixell.com
Kirsten Scott and Kim Smith, éclat Marketing
Tel: +44 (0)1276 486000
mobixell@eclat.co.uk
