Press Releases

ACCESS Powers High-Performance Mobile Handset in China with First Full-Featured BREW-Based Browser

TOKYO, Japan/ BEIJING, China / NEWARK, CA, USA / OBERHAUSEN, Germany – December 10, 2004 – ACCESS Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 4813), a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, announced today that its NF v3.1 for BREW mobile browser and mobile multimedia mail client have been deployed in TCL Mobile Communications’ newly launched TCL1688 mobile handset to support China Unicom’s networks. TCL Mobile Communications, the second largest mobile handset manufacturer in China, will leverage NF v3.1 as well as multimedia mail client for BREW to offer the most advanced mobile browsing and mobile mail functionality currently available for high-performance CDMA handsets in China.

NF v3.1 for BREW offers a comprehensive feature-set, including support for WAP 2.0, WML, HTML and cHTML, as well as advanced capabilities like Smart-Fit Rendering^™, a sophisticated technology that intelligently renders full Web pages to fit the screen width of mobile devices; and Rapid-Render^™, a progressive rendering technology that significantly accelerates the presentation of Web page data. With NF v3.1 for BREW, TCL1688 end-users enjoy seamless access to rich, mobile Internet content including legacy WAP content. In addition, ACCESS’ multimedia mail client for BREW provides support for China Unicom’s U-Info and U-Mail services, part of China Unicom’s advanced U-Max data services offerings.

“The open infrastructure and technology advantage of the BREW solution, allows us to better control our R&D costs and accelerate our time-to-market,” said Dr. Jin Dai, assistant general manager, CDMA Strategic Business Group of TCL Mobile Communication Co., Ltd. “ACCESS‘ advanced products and proven technology for the BREW platform, further strengthens our ability to develop handsets that provide high-performance data services. The availability of this new handset model, fully demonstrates the strength and capability of domestic mobile manufacturers.”

“ACCESS has long been committed to providing rich mobile data applications to clients on a variety of platforms, including Internet browsers, Java virtual machine, and multimedia messaging clients,“ said Pierre Suhandinata, president and CEO of ACCESS China. “TCL is a leading mobile handset manufacturer in China, and we are pleased to integrate our advanced technology with TCL’s 1688 BREW handset. Our combined efforts have resulted in the first full-featured browser for BREW-enabled handsets in China, allowing Chinese subscribers to enjoy a more convenient, comprehensive and appealing mobile Internet.”

“BREW is successfully enabling the commercial wireless data services of many mobile operators worldwide. Currently 37 mobile operators and 27 mobile handset manufacturers across the world have adopted BREW,” said Dr. Yan Zhuang, Director of Business Development, Qualcomm China. “BREW technology continues to generate strong accolades from the China market. The successful launch of the TCL 1688, is a result of the close partnership between TCL and ACCESS, and continues to demonstrate the flexibility of the BREW platform.”

About NF Browser
NF browser recently surpassed over 139 million deployments globally that include 293 unique devices ranging from mobile phones and PDAs to digital televisions, gaming consoles, and automobile telematics systems from 90 major Internet device manufacturers. NF supports a wider range of operating systems than any competing browser including solutions for Palm^® OS, Symbian OS, Linux OS, Windows Mobile/PocketPC and mobile handset environments like BREW^™. NF browser technology is used by the world’s leading mobile operators, software providers and electronics manufacturers including Adobe, Alpine, AT&T Wireless, Casio, Epson, Hitachi, Hutchinson 3G Group, IBM, KDDI, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Mitsubishi, palmOne, PalmSource, Samsung, SANYO, Sharp, Sony, Telcel Venezuela, Toshiba, UTStarcom and more.

About ACCESS
ACCESS Co. Ltd. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 4813) is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with offices throughout the world including major centers in the U.S., Germany, and China. ACCESS is a leading global provider of mobile Internet technologies and consultation services for the beyond-PC market. ACCESS’ NF browser technology powers 293 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’ NF browser technology is most widely deployed in mobile phones for NTT DoCoMo’s popular i-mode and FOMA^™ services. To date, over 139 million ACCESS software licenses have shipped from more than 90 major Internet device manufactures. ACCESS was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers market on February 26, 2001. More information is available at www.access.co.jp/english/.

About TCL Mobile
TCL Mobile Communication Co., Ltd. is a member of TCL communication industrial group, which belongs to one of the largest producers of electronic devices in China -TCL Holdings Co., Ltd.TCL Mobile is a hi-tech joint venture committed to R&D, manufacturing and sales of mobile terminal products. Along with other Chinese mobile phone manufacturers, TCL is greatly supported by the State Development Planning Commission and the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).

ACCESS is a registered trademark in Japan. NetFront^™and Compact NetFront are registered trademarks of ACCESS Co., Ltd. in Japan. i-mode is a trademark or registered trademark of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. in Japan and other countries. NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA service is available only to subscribers in Japan. palmOne, Treo, VersaMail and Palm OS are among the trademarks or registered trademarks owned by or licensed to palmOne, Inc. or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Contacts