Press Releases

PalmSource Selects ACCESS NetFront™ as Core Browser Technology for Palm OS Cobalt

Expanded Relationship with PalmSource Brings ACCESS’ Advanced NetFront Browsing Technology to New OS

San Jose, CA – PalmSource Developer Conference – February 10, 2003 – ACCESS (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 4813), a global provider of mobile content delivery and access technologies, announced today that its NetFront Browser Engine^™ has been selected as the core technology by PalmSource for the new Palm OS Cobalt Web Browser. The multiyear agreement to include core NetFront browser technology in Palm OS Cobalt builds upon PalmSource’s existing relationship with ACCESS, which also provided the core browser technology for Palm OS 5.

“With the new Palm OS, we wanted to continue offering our users the best mobile Internet experience possible, so ACCESS’ NetFront technology was the obvious choice,” said Larry Slotnick, chief product officer, PalmSource. “NetFront technology was integral to achieving high customer satisfaction with Palm OS 5, and we’re confident that the NetFront-based Web Browser in Palm OS Cobalt will elevate the mobile Internet experience to new levels of satisfaction.”

NetFront Browser Engine brings a host of new rendering technologies to Palm OS Cobalt, including Smart-Fit Rendering^™, a technology that intelligently renders Web pages to fit the narrow screen widths of mobile devices, eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling, as well as Rapid-Render^™, a progressive rendering technology that dramatically speeds page rendering in mobile environments. NetFront also supports the very latest Internet standards endorsed by the W3C as well as broad multimedia plug-in support, and advanced features specifically designed for handhelds, such as multi-window browsing, drag-scrolling and off-line browsing.

“PalmSource’s decision to continue using NetFront as the core browser in the newest version of the Palm OS is a powerful validation of our technology,” said Toru Arakawa, president and CEO of ACCESS. “We are pleased to partner with PalmSource to provide the most advanced mobile Internet browsing experience.”

As a core element in the Palm OS browser, NetFront technology is currently found in 41 devices from manufacturers as diverse as palmOne, Sony and Tapwave. NetFront is also available for other mobile platforms such as DoCoMo’s iMode^™. The continued relationship with PalmSource reaffirms NetFront browser technology as one of the most widely deployed and actively used mobile browser technology in the world.

About NetFront
NetFront v3.1 is the latest version of the most widely deployed and actively used mobile browser in the world. NetFront recently surpassed 100 million deployments globally and was selected as a “Best Software Awards 2003” finalist by Pocket PC Magazine. NetFront supports a wider range of operating systems than any competing browser. ACCESS provides NetFront solutions for Palm^® OS, Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Pocket PC, Linux OS, and mobile handset environments like BREW^™. ACCESS’ NetFront has been deployed in over 267 unique devices ranging from mobile phones and PDAs to digital televisions, gaming consoles, and automobile telematics systems from 90 major Internet device manufacturers. NetFront browser technology is included in Internet solutions from many of the world’s leading mobile operators, software providers and electronics manufacturers including Adobe, Alpine, AT&T Wireless, China Mobile, China Unicom, Handspring, Hutchinson 3G Group, IBM, KDDI, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, PalmSource, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and more.

About ACCESS
ACCESS Co. Ltd. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 4813) is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, and has subsidiaries in Fremont, California, Oberhausen, Germany, and Beijing, China. ACCESS is a global provider of mobile content delivery and access technologies for information appliances. ACCESS’ embedded NetFront and Compact NetFront browsers power 267 different commercial products worldwide including mobile phones, digital televisions, set-top boxes, game consoles, PDAs, car navigation systems, web phones, kiosk terminals and intranet terminals. ACCESS’ Compact NetFront microbrowser is most widely deployed in phones for NTT DoCoMo’s popular i-mode^® service. To date, over 100 million ACCESS software licenses have shipped from more than 90 major Internet device manufactures (As of Sept, 2003). ACCESS was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers market on February 26, 2001. More information is available at www.access.co.jp/english/ or www.access-us-inc.com.

ACCESS is a registered trademark in Japan. NetFront is registered trademark of ACCESS Co., Ltd. in Japan. i-mode is a registered trademark of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. Palm OS is a registered trademark and Palm Powered is a trademark of Palm Trademark Holding Company, LLC. Other brands may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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