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Symbian and Yahoo! Collaborate to Provide Mobile Consumers Anywhere, Anytime
Access to Wireless Content and Entertainment on Symbian OS
3GSM World Congress, Barcelona, 14 February, 2006 - Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO),
a leading global Internet company, and Symbian Limited, provider of the market
leading open mobile OS, today announced that Yahoo! has joined the Symbian Platinum
Program to support the growing market for Symbian OST phones and applications.
Symbian develops and licenses Symbian OS, the leading open operating system for
advanced, data-enabled mobile phones also known as smartphones, to the world’s
largest handset manufacturers.
Last month Yahoo! announced its new Yahoo! Go Mobile service which will soon
launch in North America, Europe and Asia (http://go.yahoo.com). This new service provides Symbian OS phone users with access to their favorite
Internet content and services. Yahoo! Go Mobile integrates the power of the Internet
into consumers’ mobile phone experiences by combining real-time connectivity with
access to their community, information and content services from across the web.
This new service will be the first time Yahoo! has brought a comprehensive set
of the company’s industry-leading products and full access to services across
the Web into a single application for mobile phones. From their Symbian OS mobiles,
users can access Yahoo! services including Mail, Address Book, Messenger, Search,
Photos News, Sports, Finance and Games. Yahoo! Go Mobile will be available for
demonstration on Symbian OS phones at the Symbian stand during 3GSM 2006 at B20/B21,
Hall 8.
Since utilizing Symbian OS for its Yahoo! Go Mobile service, Yahoo! has now decided
to join Symbian’s Platinum Program to leverage additional technical resource to
further develop the product. The rapid growth of the open OS phone market which
Gartner expects to grow to 20 percent of the total phone market and Symbian’s
market leading position underpinned Yahoo!’s decision to put its Yahoo! Go Mobile
content and services on top of the Symbian OS. As of Q3 2005, almost 48 million
Symbian phones had shipped and been deployed to over 250 major network operators
worldwide.
"Yahoo! sees Symbian OS and the open phone market as a tremendous opportunity
to provide its services to customers worldwide," said Christian Lindhom, vice
president, global mobile products, Yahoo!. "We welcome the support provided by
the Symbian Platinum Program in helping to leverage Yahoo!’s visibility in the
mobile mass market and enterprise spaces as well as with key players in the device
manufacturer and mobile carrier markets."
"Yahoo! Go Mobile combines mass market appeal and innovative usability focus,
to provide easy access to information, content and entertainment through mobile
devices with Symbian OS", said Simon Garth, vice-president marketing, Symbian.
"We are delighted to welcome Yahoo! to the Symbian Platinum Program thus further
broadening the reach of the Symbian Ecosystem."
About the Symbian Platinum Program
The Symbian Platinum Program includes companies that have a technology or strategic
position that is key to the success of mobile computing technology surrounding
Symbian OS. As part of the program, Platinum Partners benefit from a range of
commercial services, including technical support and joint marketing opportunities
as well as privileged access to Symbian OS source code and a dedicated Partner
Support team. Symbian Platinum Program
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked
Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! seeks to provide online products and services
essential to users’ lives, and offers a full range of tools and marketing solutions
for businesses to connect with Internet users around the world. Yahoo! is headquartered
in Sunnyvale, California.
About Symbian Ltd.
Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS,
the market leading open operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones
also known as smartphones.
Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world’s leading handset manufacturers and
has built close co-operative business relationships with leading companies across
the mobile industry. In the first three quarters of 2005, more than 23 million
Symbian OS mobile phones were sold worldwide to over 250 network operators, bringing
the total number of Symbian OS phones shipped to almost 48 million.
Symbian has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom with offices in the United
States, Europe (England and Sweden (UIQ Technology AB)), Israel and Asia (India,
P.R. China, Korea, and Japan). For more information, please visit www.symbian.com
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