New Symbian Platinum Partner Provides Free Software for Symbian Smartphones, Offering VoIP Calls, Text Messages and Instant Messaging

EQO also announced today that it has joined the Symbian Platinum Partner program to engage more closely with Symbian and its ecosystem of leading mobile technology innovators and service providers. Symbian develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market leading operating system for smartphones. Symbian OS is licensed by the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturers, and to date, over 145 million Symbian smartphones have shipped worldwide to over 250 mobile network operators.

“EQO for Symbian OS is a compelling, functionally-rich application that provides Symbian smartphone users with a cost-effective solution for voice-over-IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM) services,” said Jerry Panagrossi, Vice President, US Operations, Symbian. “We welcome EQO to the Symbian Platinum Partner Program and are delighted they recognise the greater functionality and performance that developing in native Symbian C++ brings to EQO consumers and to the ever-growing Symbian ecosystem.”

By using EQO, Symbian smartphone users can now save up to 95% on international calls to landlines and mobile phones, and save up to 70% on international text messages. In addition, calls and texts exchanged between EQO users are free. Once the EQO application is downloaded, users can automatically import all of their existing contacts into their EQO phonebook. With EQO’s presence feature, users are able to see which of their contacts are online and who is available for a call, to receive a text or have a chat using EQO’s free IM feature.

EQO is already available on hundreds of device models and will be available as a native Symbian C++ client for S60 3rd Edition devices, including the popular Nokia Nseries and Eseries models.

“We’re taking advantage of the optimized performance that developing for native Symbian C++ brings, in order to deliver more advanced features to EQO customers” said EQO Chief Executive Officer Bill Tam.

EQO is inviting all Symbian enthusiasts to be part of the beta trial by signing up at www.EQO.com/symbian. EQO demonstrations are available at the Symbian Smartphone Show on 16th and 17th October on the main Symbian stand and are part of the show Applications Trail competition.

EQO Supported Symbian Smartphones:

N71, N73, N75, N76, N77, N80, N81, N91, N92, N93, N93i, N95, E50, E61, E65, E62, E60, E70, E90, 3250, 5500, 5700, 6110 Navigator, 6120, 6121, 6290.

About EQO

EQO (pronounced "echo") is a free, easy to use application for your existing mobile phone available worldwide that lets you place cheap international calls, text messages and instant messages to anywhere in the world. International calling rates start as low as 1.2p/minute (2.3¢ USD), international text messages for 5p (10¢ USD), and access to mobile IM services like MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber is free! EQO is remarkably simple to use and does not require a new contract, computer or calling card. It works just like your mobile's phonebook - simply scroll through your contacts and click to call or send a message. EQO works with your existing phone plan (local minutes and a bit of data) to complete cheap calls and messages at some of the lowest rates in the world. Even better, we don’t charge anything for calls and texts between two EQO users. The company was founded in 2004 and has offices in Vancouver, London and San Francisco.

www.eqo.com