Symbian and TapRoot Systems announce 802.11 subsystem product for Symbian OS licensees

TapRoot Systems demonstrates Symbian OS communication over live 802.11 network at 3GSM

Cannes, France – February 23, 2004 – Symbian Software Limited and TapRoot Systems announced today that Taproot’s CommP™ (Communications Platform) 802.11 solution is now available to Symbian OS licensees. The CommP 802.11 solution from TapRoot provides an 802.11 software subsystem suitable for immediate integration into a smartphone based on Symbian OS that uses either the Series 60 Platform or the UIQ user interfaces.

CommP 802.11 is being demonstrated on the Symbian stand E31, Hall 2 within the exhibition hall at the 3GSM show in Cannes this week.

TapRoot
"Users of 802.11 enabled handsets will see a greater than 10 fold increase in bandwidth over the existing cellular network data connections,” said Hugh Thomas, CEO, TapRoot Systems. “We believe that providing 802.11 connectivity to handsets opens up a whole new marketplace for Symbian OS devices and applications,” he continued.

"TapRoot System’s comprehensive software product allows smartphone manufacturers the ability to integrate 802.11 capabilities into their designs quickly,” said Thomas. "We have addressed the technical obstacles of adding 802.11 to a handset including power management, security and roaming,” he continued.

Symbian
"The use of 802.11 on Symbian OS smartphones will enable corporate users to take better advantage of their smartphones,” said Ian Weston, VP Partner Support Symbian. “Through an extension of the Symbian Companion Technology Programme, TapRoot is the first Symbian partner to provide 802.11 technology to Symbian OS licensees and we recognise their leadership in this capability,” he continued.

CommP is extensible through additional feature packs available directly from TapRoot Systems and capable of supporting the custom API extensions as required by Symbian OS-based user interfaces Series 60 and UIQ.

TapRoot Systems is offering a pre-integrated software subsystem, reviewed by Symbian’s development team to maximize future compatibility with later generations of Symbian OS. CommP 802.11 supports Symbian OS v7.0, v7.0s and v8.0.

About TapRoot Systems, Inc.

Founded in 2000 and headquartered in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina, USA, TapRoot Systems Inc. is a privately held corporation that develops software products for wireless consumer products. Its primary areas of expertise are Symbian OS based smart-phone systems and 802.11 wireless LAN applications. Its major customers are wireless mobile handset manufacturers and semiconductor vendors worldwide.

About Symbian Software Limited

Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the global open industry standard operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones.

Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world's leading mobile phone manufacturers including Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. Publicly announced products based on Symbian OS include the BenQ P30, Motorola A920 and A925 for 3, Sendo X, Siemens SX-1, NTT DoCoMo FOMA F900i, F2102V and F2051 built by Fujitsu, Sony Ericsson P800 and P900 Smartphones, Nokia 9200 Communicator range as well as the 7700, 7650, 6600, 6620, 3650/3600, 3660/3620 and N-Gage.

Symbian has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom with offices in the US, Europe and Asia.

http://www.symbian.com/
press@symbian.com

Media Enquiries

Karen Webster TapRoot Systems +1 919 465 2266 x14 Marketing@TapRootSystems.com

Laura Sykes Symbian Ltd. +44 20 7154 1917 press@symbian.com