Press Releases

ACCESS’ NetFront™ v3.3 Browser Powers Four Sony Ericsson Walkman™ Phones

Market Demands for Richer Multimedia Phones Spurs Growing Demand for ACCESS Technology

TOKYO, Japan – February 8, 2006 – Reflecting market demands for advanced browser technologies that complement increasingly feature rich handsets, ACCESS Co., Ltd., (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 4813), a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, today announced that its NetFront^™v3.3 browser powers Sony Ericsson’s four newest multimedia Walkman music phones.  The NetFront browser is deployed in the latest W810 Quad-band EDGE phones, as well as in the W900 — the first third-generation (UMTS) handsets in the Walkman family — and two other popular Walkman handsets – the W550 and W600.  Visitors to 3GSM are invited to stop by ACCESS’ booth stand G22/G43 (Hall 2) where the W550, W810, and W900 will be on display.

“Advanced multimedia mobile phones like Sony Ericsson’s Walkman handsets are designed to take advantage of the powerful full Internet browsing capabilities of the NetFront browser, whose advanced architecture was built to meet present and future market requirements,” said Toru Arakawa, president and CEO of ACCESS. “By teaming with leading global handset partners who continually deliver new technologies and value to the mobile industry, we can ensure the richest mobile Internet browsing experience possible for end-users.”

“Full Web browsing on mobile devices is a key handset capability going forward, but one that few software companies have successfully enabled for mass market phones,” noted UK-based Telecom and Software Consulting “Ovum” analyst Tony Cripps. “Now that they have, Ovum expects the trend towards full Internet-capable handsets to expand rapidly into mainstream feature phones in the coming years.”

“Sony Ericsson’s Walkman handsets are distinguished by their ability to provide high-quality music, Internet browser, camera, video, game and phone capabilities from a single device while on the go,” said Steve Walker, Sony Ericsson’s Head of Product Marketing. “The NetFront browser’s ability to automatically format Web pages, create files and bookmarks and its support for RSS feeds made it a great choice for our multimedia Walkman phones.”

ACCESS’ NetFront continues to be the browser of choice for the world’s leading mobile handset manufacturers and mobile operators worldwide.  NetFront features unique technologies that have improved mobile Internet browsing in millions of mobile device deployments.  One such unique technology, Rapid-Render^™, is a sophisticated incremental rendering technology that dramatically accelerates the presentation of Web pages.  Another, known as Smart-Fit Rendering^™, is a technology that intelligently renders Web pages to fit the screen width of mobile devices, thus eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling.  In addition, ACCESS has established itself is a major contributor to Internet governing bodies such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and CDMA Development Group (CDG).  NetFront supports the OMA Browsing 2.2 specification, WML, HTML 4.01, and cHTML standards.

The Walkman W810 Quad-band EDGE phone is the latest addition to the Walkman branded music phones, and is scheduled to start shipping globally in Q1 2006 with the W810i for Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Americas, and the W810c for Mainland China. The Walkman W900i, which offers exceptionally fast over-the-air downloads of various multimedia (music, video and graphics), is currently available in Europe, the Middle East, APAC and Africa, with a W900c version for Mainland China, pending 3G-service availability.  The Walkman W550, “affordably-priced for fun seekers,” is available in two variants: the W550i for European, Middle East and Asia Pacific markets, and the W550c for mainland China.  The Walkman W600i multimedia handset is currently shipping in the Americas.  It can handle phone calls while listening to digital music, capture photos and video as well as access the Internet and email.

NetFront Browser
NetFront browser recently surpassed 200 million deployments globally representing 720 unique devices ranging from mobile phones and PDAs to digital televisions, gaming consoles, and automobile telematics systems from 90 major Internet device manufacturers. NetFront supports a wider range of operating systems than any competing browser including s olutions for Palm^® OS, Symbian OS, Linux OS, Microsoft^® Windows^® Mobile/PocketPC and mobile handset environments like BREW^®. NetFront browser technology is used by the world’s leading mobile operators, software providers and electronics manufacturers including Adobe, Alpine, Amoi, AT&T Wireless, Casio, Epson, Hitachi, Hutchinson 3G Group, IBM, KDDI, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Mitsubishi, Palm, Samsung, SANYO, Sharp, Sony, Telcel Venezuela, TCL, Toshiba, UTStarcom and more.

About ACCESS
ACCESS is a global provider of Internet technologies to the mobile and beyond-PC markets. Its NetFront browser, widely recognized as one of the most advanced Internet browsers in the world, is a cornerstone tothe company’s vision of enabling Internet access anywhere and on any device. NetFront technologies are delivering full Internet browsing and related services to next-generation mobile devices and consumer electronics ranging from digital TV to automobile telematics. For more information: www.access.co.jp or www.access-us-inc.com.

ACCESS,  NetFront, Smart-Fit Rendering and Rapid-Render are trademarks or registered trademarks of ACCESS CO., LTD. in Japan and other countries. WALKMAN and its logo are registered trademarks of Sony Corporation in Japan and the United States, and are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sony Corporation in other countries or territories. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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