HP and Intel Mobile-To-Market (M2M) grant helps 5 companies go to market with wireless solutions One million dollar grant helps Mobile E-Services Bazaar partners go regional 10.17.2000 Singapore - 17 October 2000 -- Hewlett-Packard and Intel today awarded a total of S$1 million to five companies to help them launch and market Internet solutions developed at HP's Mobile E-Services Bazaar (Bazaar). These are among the first mobile applications based on the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) to be commercialized under the Bazaar's program. Under the HP and Intel M2M (Mobile-to-Market) Grant, the companies have received funds to launch marketing campaigns promoting their wireless applications. The funds will make up to 85 percent of each company's marketing campaign spend. They will engage in marketing activities which include product launches, roadshows, media advertising and direct mailers. The M2M Grant recipients are Airgateway, Finesse Alliance, inTouch Wireless Services, Orange Gum and Silk Technologies. Their solutions range from entertainment services, transactional services to personal information management and content services. The solutions are: • e-manager by Airgateway: A powerful office productivity tool that delivers mobile connectivity to office and personal email, office and customer contact lists, favorite WAP sites and MyPortal; • Cl@rity? Mobile Solutions by Finesse Alliance: Extend Finesse Alliance's clients service reach to their customers via Internet/WWW and mobile/wireless devices. A key differentiator of Finesse Alliance Cl@rityT? Mobile Solutions is its support for interaction across multiple channels and its ability to maintain an up-to-date continuity of relationships across these customer care and service touch points; • OTAirTicket by inTouch Wireless Service: An innovative solution to book and deliver cinema tickets Over The Air (OTA) using SMS (Short Message Service) or WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). The solution has the potential to be used for other ticketing applications such as parking, concert, museum, theme parks to hotel and airlines; • Relaxz! wireless entertainment by Orange Gum: The relaxz! wireless products are platform-independent wireless content designed to enrich and entertain Net age wireless subscribers. With a diverse variety of content choice, maintained and delivered from localised enterprise servers, and customisable using the relaxz! Service Manager, relaxz! suite of lifestyle and entertainment content products enhance telco's services to enable them to deliver the competitive edge over similar players; and • sales-e-Motion by Silk Technologies: At anytime, anywhere, sales-e-Motion allows a mobile sales executive to access inventory and product information, check available stocks, latest pricing and place sales order with a mobile device anytime and anywhere. Please see attached factsheets for more details • airgateway profile2.doc • Finesse Alliance profile.pdf • inTouch Profile.doc • Silktech Profile2.doc • orangegum profile2.doc Wireless communications is the way to the future "Wireless Internet has emerged as the hottest Internet technology today, but what it lacks now is killer applications," said Kelvin Tan, Director of the Bazaar. "HP is doubling its efforts to give a boost to companies which have mobile killer applications to launch." "The speed with which our development partners are getting their products to market is a strong testimony of the Bazaar's success," he said. "It proves that the Bazaar is now a source of best-in-class in new mobile applications, as well as a source of support, compatibility testing and constant innovation for mobile application developers." The M2M grant is available to companies undertaking development work at the Bazaar. There are currently 64 members under this program. Recipients of the M2M grant must ensure that their applications are mobile-centric and run on HP NT, Linux and HP-UX platforms. The grant is a timely response to a growing trend of wireless Internet usage. According to Nomura International, there will be more wireless Internet users than PC Internet users by 2002. The Bazaar, launched in Helsinki in October 1999, is a global program to promote the development of mobile e-services solutions based on some of the hottest technology platforms such as e-speak, WAP, GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), Bluetooth and 3rd Generation Systems (W-CDMA). The Singapore Bazaar, which was launched on May 8, 2000 serves as the Asia Pacific regional hub to Satellite Bazaars in Beijing, and Bangkok. Through the Singapore Bazaar, mobile e-services applications developed in the Asia Pacific region can be leveraged and extended to the international market. Two Bazaar partners, Air Gateway and 3ui.com, have been able to leverage on HP's regional presence through participation in the Bangkok Bazaar launch. Partners with the Bazaar enjoy a wide range of technology and marketing support. The Singapore Bazaar has started training programs for its partners. The incubation lab facilities have also been made available for utilization from partners with the latest mobile devices and platforms. In conjunction with HP E-Services World which was held from Sep 28 to 29, 4 Bazaar partners showcased their solutions to more than 600 participants at the event. In the pipeline are marketing events and roadshows to showcase the partners' solutions to generate awareness. To date, 15 technology partners, 83 Application Service Providers/ System Integrators/ Content Providers as well as 10 Venture Capitalists have signed up with the Asia Pacific Bazaar. Intel taps wireless potential Mr Ian Drew, Country Manager of Intel Technology Asia Pte Ltd, said, "Intel sees the advent of wireless Internet as a distributed extension of the desktop Internet computing experience. We want to tap the potential of wireless communications by bringing to fruition applications that will ride on the next wave of wireless technology." Intel announced its commitment to wireless communications with the formation of its Wireless Communications and Computing Group in December 1999. The group focuses on cellular and wireless communications, providing building blocks for computing and wireless communication devices and data applications in the growing cellular market. In September 2000, Intel introduced the Intel? Personal Internet Client Architecture, a new architecture designed to accelerate the development of next-generation Internet applications for wireless devices. The Intel? XScale?, a new chip microarchitecture designed to benefit a wide variety of wireless Internet and networking infrastructure applications, microarchitecture, was also introduced in August 2000. Intel's wireless direction includes building on core businesses, such as its industry-leading flash memory technology; cellular chipsets; high-performance, low-power processors; and digital signal processing activities. Additionally, Intel has opened Intel? Wireless Competence Centers in Sweden, Japan and China to work with regional industry leaders on developing wireless solutions HP and INTEL M2M Grant is timely shot in the arm The M2M Grant is a timely shot in the arm for the recipient companies. Mr Steven Hong, Senior Vice President (Partners & Alliance) of Finesse Alliance said, "The programme has given us the opportunity to launch our mobile solutions with a key partner not just in Singapore but also in the region. We believe that our solutions can succeed both locally and regionally." Mr Hong's thoughts were echoed by Mr Wong Ann Yi, Executive Vice President (Sales and Alliance) of Airgateway. "The Bazaar has enabled us to go to Thailand with e-manager. We showcased our product to the Bazaar partners in Bangkok when the Bangkok bazaar was launched. The response has been overwhelming, "said Mr Wong. Mr Tony Seah, General Manager of inTouch Wireless Services Pte Ltd praised HP and Intel for their foresight in launching the grant. "HP and Intel are doing their part for the IT industry by trying to help those with the most potential to launch their products. With OTAirTicket, we believe that we have a product that appeals to telephone operators, cinema operators and consumers," said Mr Seah. Dr P T Ong, Chairman of Silk Technologies Pte Ltd said, "The Bazaar offers us the technical facilities for us to test our solutions. Now, with the M2M grant, we are able to increase awareness of wireless technology among our target users who are mainly SMBs." About Intel Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom. About HP Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services-- is focused on making technology and its benefits accessible to individuals and businesses through simple appliances, useful e-services and an always-on Internet infrastructure. HP has 86,000 employees worldwide and had total revenue from continuing operations of US$42.4 billion in its 1999 fiscal year. Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.