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SYMBIAN AND BEATNIK PARTNER TO ENABLE
RICH AUDIO EXPERIENCES FOR NEXT GENERATION MOBILE HANDSETS
Beatnik Audio Engine Integrated
With Symbian OS
LONDON, ENGLAND and SAN MATEO, CA - November 20, 2001
- Symbian and Beatnik, Inc., a leading provider of structured
audio software solutions for mobile devices, today announced
that the two companies will enable today's 2G and 2.5G networks
to offer high quality, structured audio multimedia and entertainment
services through the integration of the Beatnik Audio Engine
(BAE) and Symbian OS. Beatnik will join Symbian's
Technology Partner program, which focuses on supporting
companies that provide enabling technologies to complement
Symbian OS. The companies agree to partner on the marketing
and development of technologies that will be used in Symbian
OS devices on a worldwide basis.
Using Beatnik's structured audio engine technology, licensees
of Symbian OS will be able to enable the delivery of rich
musical ring tone services and peer-to-peer multimedia messaging,
offering increased revenue opportunities for the wireless
industry. Mobile device users will have access to a wide
range of custom audio and music content, audio enabled applications
and services. The Beatnik Audio Engine within a Symbian
OS based mobile device provides an interactive audio resource
that can be used by all applications on the device, enabling
a richer user experience. As an example, interactive games
applications will be able to deliver realistic sound effects
and audio cues as well as graphical output.
"Having licensed Symbian OS to major handset manufacturers,
we're now seeing Symbian OS devices shipping worldwide,"
said Mark Edwards, EVP, Sales & Marketing, Symbian.
"Our focus now is on working with technology partners
to drive compelling content, applications and services for
mobile phones based on our open, advanced operating system.
With the help of partners like Beatnik, we will reach our
goal."
Symbian's Technology Partner program offers leading technology
specialists the opportunity to work closely with Symbian
in developing enabling technologies and engage in co-marketing
campaigns, thus adding value to the Symbian OS. Symbian
will also assist Technology Partners in engaging directly
with Symbian's licensees, enabling rapid time-to-market
for a wide range of wireless devices. Symbian's licensees
include Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Psion,
Sanyo, and Siemens.
"Beatnik is committed to work closely with Symbian
to provide fit for purpose audio solutions for its operating
system," said Jeremy Copp, SVP, Sales & Marketing,
Beatnik. "We are providing the key components in the
future of entertainment in the wireless market. Together,
we will enable the creation of rich ring tones, game sound
effects, multimedia messaging, and audio content delivery
to smartphones and other mobile devices."
The BAE enables users to experience instantaneous high-quality
audio using extremely small file sizes. The BAE is a hardware-independent
software solution that provides a complete audio sub-system
including a wavetable synthesizer & sequencer, effects
processor and stereo mixer. The BAE can play back and mix
popular formats such as XMF, MP3, WAV, AIFF and MIDI.
The BAE enhances MIDI by adding custom samples to recreate
the original sound of the music or audio. It also circumvents
many of the piracy concerns associated with file formats
such as MP3 and MIDI by the use of a proprietary Beatnik
security mechanism.
For more information on Beatnik, Inc. go to: www.beatnik.com
or contact:
.
About Beatnik, Inc.
Beatnik licenses scalable structured audio software solutions
for mobile devices that enable rich multimedia content delivery
and an enhanced user experience for games and device interaction.
Beatnik markets its core software technology and audio content
development tools to mobile device manufacturers and a community
of creative professionals. Incorporated in 1996, Beatnik
was founded by musician and composer Thomas Dolby Robertson.
About Symbian
Symbian owns, develops and licenses a software platform
for next generation mobile phones. Owned by Ericsson, Motorola,
Nokia, Panasonic and Psion, Symbian's mission is to license
the Symbian platform to all mobile phone manufacturers and
to create a mass market for next generation mobile phones
by working closely with wireless networks, content, services,
messaging and enterprise wide solution providers. For more
information see www.symbian.com.
# # #
Symbian, the Symbian platform and other
Symbian marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Symbian Ltd. Beatnik, the Beatnik logo, RMF, XMF, Beatnik
Audio Engine, BAE, miniBAE, and miniBeatnik Audio Engine
are trademarks or registered trademarks of Beatnik, Inc.
All rights reserved. All other products and services mentioned
are trademarks of their respective companies.
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