Omnifone Sounds the Mobile Music Revolution with Musiwave
Omnifone Collaborates with Musiwave for MusicStation next generation mobile music service
13 February 2007, 3GSM World Congress, Barcelona - Omnifone, a UK-based mobile music company, today announced a collaboration with Musiwave, an Openwave company (NASDAQ: OPWV), the leading provider of mobile music entertainment services to operators and media companies worldwide, to distribute MusicStation, a revolutionary 'all-you-can-eat' mobile music service, that works on all major music handsets.
For a fee of only £1.99 per week* MusicStation provides subscribers with unlimited localised Over the Air (OTA) downloads to their mobiles from Musiwave's end-to-end music platform.
"Working with Omnifone enables us to complement our existing end-to-end service suite with a differentiating mobile music subscription service that works over the air and links with our music platform," commented Guillaume Decugis, Vice President, Musiwave.
"By working with Musiwave we will be able to offer millions of subscribers worldwide freedom to access the music they love, wherever they are and on whichever music phone they choose to buy," added Omnifone CEO Rob Lewis. "Linking with Musiwave's network of 35 operators will help us to quickly bring MusicStation onto consumers' handsets so that people can start enjoying all the world's music for a small weekly charge."
MusicStation offers a number of unique features for consumers, including:
- Unlimited download AYCE subscription services for full music downloads, for a weekly fee: £1.99 (mobile) £2.99** (mobile and Mac/PC) or in Europe 2.99 Euros (mobile), 3.99 Euros (mobile and Mac/PC);
- Wide range handset reach across 2.5G/3G Java and Symbian handsets;
- Features include: background downloading whilst music plays / playlist management / music search / news review / MusicStation community features;
- Support for Advanced Audio Coding format (eAAC+) which enables faster mobile download speed and superior music sound quality for compliant handsets;
- Industry standard DRM solution, even for handsets with limited in-built DRM capability.
- Ability for consumers to automatically retrieve their favourite tracks, playlists, friends and personalised features whenever they upgrade or replace their handset OTA.
MusicStation will be offered to Musiwave's 35 existing operator customers with Musiwave serving as Omnifone's Preferred Digital Music service provider. MusicStation is immediately available internationally.
Musiwave provides mobile music entertainment services to more than 35 mobile operators in 25 countries including Vodafone, 3, Telus, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Orange, SFR and Amena. Its current roster of products includes premium mobile music personalisation services such as Smart Radio, which allows consumers to access customised mobile streaming music programming; music discovery engine, a second-generation on device portal solution that simplifies the mobile music experience; Music on Demand Service (MODS™) which allows fast, full-length secure downloads of music directly to 3G mobile devices, and Music Wizard, which enables users to identify a song using their mobile phone.
*£1.99/2.99 Euro weekly subscription fee is inclusive of data charges.
**£2.99/3.99 Euro weekly subscription service uses over the air downloads via mobile which can then be transferred to play on the subscriber's Mac/PC.
Ends
About Omnifone
Mobile music company Omnifone was founded in 2003 by leading technology entrepreneurs Rob Lewis, Phil Sant and Mark Knight. The founders, along with Chairman Jim Feeney, established Omnifone with the aim of bringing legal and affordable digital music to the mass market over the only digital medium that is ubiquitous on a global scale; mobile handsets. Omnifone's next generation music service MusicStation is a low cost all-you-can-eat subscription based mobile music service that is pre-installed on participating partner operator handsets, delivering all the world's music to most mobile handsets for a small weekly fee. Omnifone uses its unique Device Adaptive Architecture to instantaneously port MusicStation to multiple operator handsets, reducing time to market and giving the highest possible handset reach of any mobile music service globally. Omnifone has gained global support for MusicStation from the music and mobile industries and has an established network of 23 partner networks, reaching across 40 European, Asia Pacific and African countries. Omnifone's founders sold the successful internet software development company Cromwell Media for £850m in March 2000 and subsequently sold Silicon.com and associated European assets they founded, to major online publishers, including NASDAQ-listed CNET Networks. Omnifone has offices in London, UK and Hong Kong. For further information, please visit www.omnifone.com.
About Musiwave and Openwave
Musiwave, an Openwave company (Openwave Systems Inc. NASDAQ: OPWV), is a leading provider of mobile music entertainment solutions, including software, marketing and content management, to operators and media companies worldwide. For more information, please visit www.musiwave.net.
Openwave Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: OPWV) is the leading independent provider of software solutions that ignite mobility for the communications and media industries. Openwave empowers its customers to rapidly transform their business by sparking new revenue streams and market opportunities, building loyal subscriber communities and reducing operational costs. Openwave's broad range of IP-based handset-to-network solutions enable the rapid launch of information, communication and entertainment services across networks and devices and include handset software, content delivery, adaptive messaging, location, music and video services. Openwave is a global company headquartered in Redwood City, California. For more information please visit www.openwave.com.
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Openwave and the Musiwave logo are trademarks of Openwave Systems Inc.
MusicStation, Omnifone and the MusicStation and Omnifone logos are trademarkets of Omnifone Limited.
All other trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.
For more information please contact:
Openwave Systems Inc.
Trisha Mirel
trisha.mirel@openwave.com
Tel: + 1 650 480 5509
Media contacts:
Tim Hadley
PR director
Omnifone
+44 (0) 7976 410001
thadley@omnifone.com
