Recognizing the worldwide movement toward the convergence of telephony, data and wireless communications, Mirapoint announced its multimedia messaging platform, an architecture built on the Mirapoint Message Server which meets all the criteria for high-performance, multi-services messaging. The Mirapoint platform is the global Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) solution of choice because it provides a centralized storage and access hub for messaging services, so wireless carriers can rapidly integrate multimedia messaging with traditional desktop e-mail, short messaging service (SMS), WAP, i-mode, Web and other revenue-producing services. Mirapoint's MMS platform currently provides the message store for one third of the MMS service trials being deployed around the world.

Fully compliant with MMS storage requirements as defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the Mirapoint platform provides the ideal storage backbone for the deployment of advanced, wireless multimedia applications. Multimedia messages can include graphical and moving images, photographs, audio and text.

"Multimedia messaging is a revolution in mobile communications and information sharing, akin to the transition to Windows in the PC world," said Simon Buckingham. "Ideal for stimulating new customer and revenue growth, MMS offers an attractive market opportunity to service both existing and future messaging-based services through its ability to support integrated communication of text messaging and multimedia information, including email, video, voicemail, short messaging service and MMS -- all from a single in-box."

Mirapoint's MMS platform has been selected by CMG Wireless Data Solutions to provide the message store for MMS service trials currently being deployed around the world. Through Mirapoint's partnership with CMG, leading mobile operators including Hutchison 3G throughout Europe and Asia, and Optimus in Portugal, have already deployed the Mirapoint platform for future MMS services.

New Revenue Opportunities Today and Tomorrow

Multimedia messaging represents a significant revenue opportunity for international carriers today, and will soon be a similar windfall for wireless carriers in North America.

-- Gartner Dataquest expects worldwide revenues from all forms of mobile messaging to almost double to $22.3 billion by 2006 from $13.4 billion last year.
-- According to the Yankee Group, high adoption rates and premium prices will create a $10 billion multimedia messaging market by 2006, when messaging will generate $44 billion in annual service revenues.

Mirapoint believes that, although multimedia messaging is leading-edge technology, it shouldn't have to be complicated to deploy and manage. In addition, customers should not have to totally change their networks or purchase additional costly technologies to offer advanced multimedia services. There is an economic penalty to be paid by operators if they have to buy separate infrastructures for separate messaging-based services. In the same way, consumers appreciate the ability to obtain messages in any format, from any source, on a single device.

"Today, messaging is the universal common denominator driving business and consumer communication over the telephone, and via wireless and data networks," said Satish Ramachandran, chief executive officer of Mirapoint. "We see multimedia messaging as the next-generation killer app that's bringing them all together. Mirapoint's solution not only accomplishes this today, but functions as a powerful platform for billable services in the future."

Mirapoint allows customers to leverage their existing assets to improve their service offerings and paves the way for the delivery of messages anywhere to any device. Mirapoint delivers all of the capabilities that service providers are looking for in an MMS solution:

-- Standards support. Support for the 3GPP standards and
compatibility with widely used Internet protocols like
SMTP, MIME and IMAP

-- Interoperability. Ability to quickly and easily integrate
with partner technologies and components, such as MMS or
SMS relays

-- Service Delivery. Gives carriers the ability to integrate MMS with all the other services subscribers are using, including SMS and unified communications (fax, voice, email) to generate more billable services and revenue.
-- Unification and Simplification. Provides a universal message store -- any kind of message can be stored reliably and securely.