MMS Toolkit Helps Sharp Deliver Multimedia to Camera Wireless Phone

Openwave Systems announced that its client software is featured in the new Sharp GX10, Sharp's first multimedia handset for the European market.

Sharp is the first of several manufacturers to leverage the MMS Toolkit technologies available with Openwave® Mobile Browser Version 6.1 to build Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) features for mass-market GSM handsets.

Sharp and Openwave have worked closely together to create a tightly integrated software application suite for this handset, incorporating Sharp's MMS client for sending and receiving photos and other multimedia content, integrated Java™ download support, and a browser that supports all forms of standard Web content. These applications share a common base of software code, enabling greater reuse of device resources such as ROM (read only memory) and RAM (random access memory). Software component reuse helps manufacturers such as Sharp to reduce manufacturing and testing costs and improve time to market, resulting in less expensive devices with mass-market appeal.

The technologies available with the Openwave MMS Toolkit and Openwave Mobile Browser enable manufacturers to achieve seamless integration of a variety of operator services on mass-market mobile phones. With phones utilizing Openwave Mobile Browser, wireless operators can provide advanced services beyond WAP browsing that combine different applications but are presented to the end user through a unified interface. For example, a common set of technologies for presenting all content, regardless of presentation format (for example: i-mode, WML, MMS-SMIL and XHTML Mobile Profile) enables consistency among operator mobile portals and services. This greatly increases end user appeal and usability since the services all work together in a familiar way, without requiring a separate effort to learn how to use each service.

"We are very pleased that we selected Openwave to help us develop our first multimedia handset for Europe," said Yoshisuke Hasegawa, division general manager of the personal communication systems division at Sharp. "By choosing the market leader in WAP standards-based client software technologies, we were able to deliver a phone featuring MMS, downloads, and browsing with fast time to market and confidence."

"Finally Europeans will be able to experience the sophisticated handsets and applications that are so popular in Asia," said Thomas Reardon, co-CTO at Openwave. "Using new services like MMS, photo-messaging and full-graphics mobile Internet content is a lot more fun on the GX-10 with its screen in 64,000 colors, camera, polyphonic sound and slim-line, lightweight appearance."

Developers can download the freely available Openwave Software Development Kit (SDK) to validate their content on the Sharp device. Openwave SDK 6.1 contains a device simulator running Openwave Mobile Browser 6.1 to aid WAP 2.0 application development in XHTML Mobile Profile and CSS. More information is available at http://developer.openwave.com.

About Openwave MMS Toolkit

Openwave MMS Toolkit ships as a standard feature of Openwave Mobile Browser Version 6.1. It was designed to enable handset manufacturers and third party mobile software providers to develop a standards-based MMS client by reusing browser technology components. Openwave MMS Toolkit brings new capabilities to handset manufacturers, including:
A full featured message viewer capable of reading messages in MMS SMIL and XHTML formats
A shared code base with the browser, enabling manufacturers to offer an MMS client with a lower impact on memory requirements and with greater assurance of interoperability
Easy integration into the handset with an established API based on six generations of client software
Openwave MMS Toolkit is built on open standard technologies including the WAP 2.0 specification, WAP 206/209, XHTML and MMS SMIL to ensure client-to-server and client-to-client interoperability.

About Openwave Mobile Browser

Openwave Mobile Browser version 6.1 brings new capabilities to consumers, including:
Support for animated GIF and color support for all popular image formats, adding to existing capabilities for displaying monochrome GIF, JPEG and other popular image formats
Autofill, a feature exclusive to Openwave Mobile Browser that remembers and automatically enters URLs, names, addresses - - anything that a user previously typed
A "save" feature allowing users to save and organize images and sounds from the web pages they browse, so that content can be used to personalize their phone
A "snapshot" feature allowing users to save web pages for later off-line viewing
Support for cookies and an authentication "wallet", making it easier for sites to recognize return customers and enable secure, one-click shopping
Openwave Mobile Browser version 6.1 is based on open standard technologies and supports the WAP 2.0 specification. The browser also supports XHTML Mobile Profile and Wireless Cascading Style Sheets (WCSS) to provide significant benefits for developers by allowing them to use the same content creation tools and utilities they use today for the PC-based web. Enhanced graphical user interface (GUI) features make it easier for application developers to adapt PC-based interfaces to mobile devices. In addition, the enhanced GUI features make Web applications more intuitive to subscribers. Openwave Mobile Browser is available globally and can be used on all carrier networks that utilize industry standards for mobile data. More than 40 manufacturers around the world have shipped Openwave Mobile Browser, totaling over 300 million units shipped to-date.