Press Release

BitFlash-Sharp joint player ships on world's first Mobile SVG-enabled handset.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OTTAWA - December 8, 2003 In a move that will significantly influence the mobile industry, Sharp Corporation, a leading manufacturer of mobile phones, and BitFlash, the industry-recognized leader in Mobile SVG, today announced their joint player is shipping on the world's first Mobile SVG enabled phone. The Sharp V601SH handset, which ships with the jointly developed MotionArt player, is now available to consumers through Vodafone KK, the Japanese subsidiary of Vodafone, one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications network companies.

Based on the W3C compliant BitFlash Mobile SVG Player and the SharpMotionART (SMART) Graphics Player, the new jointly developed MotionART player brings sophisticated graphics capabilities to mass-market mobile phones. With it, consumers can receive and play back animations, greeting cards, maps, games, and, other types of Mobile SVG content that include images, sound clips, and motion graphics. They can also interact with these "intelligent" graphics - zoom and pan across maps, drill into layered documents, and more.

One of the first "killer" applications for the new SVG enabled handset from Sharp will be the ability to access and view office documents that have been converted to Mobile SVG and delivered over the air.

"Today's carriers need ongoing revenue-generating opportunities and the Sharp V601SH handset offers many," says Yata Yasonuri, Division General Manager, Next Project Department, Sharp Corporation. "Sharp is already forging relationships with carriers to offer 'killer apps' like a new value-added service based on the BitFlash Document Viewing System." Starting in early 2004, users of the V601SH handset will be able to open email attachments - office documents, like PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc… converted to Mobile SVG and delivered wirelessly.

"In today's society, the mobile phone is increasingly regarded as an information terminal," explains Donna Ronayne, Vice President of Business Development at BitFlash. "Today's professionals demand access to critical data while in transit - this includes receiving and viewing desktop files anywhere, anytime. Not only does the BitFlash Document Viewing System give users this ability, it gives them an accurate, useful view of their documents with all the formatting, layout, images, and graphics intact."

Wireless document viewing is just one of the many kinds of services the new SVG enabled handsets can support. Adds Ronayne: "Mobile SVG is the optimum presentation layer for user interfaces, location based services, and other mobile applications that require sophisticated, interactive graphics in a small memory footprint." Because this joint solution can be integrated into virtually any type of mobile device, BitFlash and Sharp are currently negotiating with other manufacturers who want to offer the same high-fidelity interactive graphics.

About BitFlash

Established in 1997, BitFlash is the industry-recognized leader in implementing Mobile SVG-an XML-based open standard for describing graphical content, endorsed by the W3C and 3GPP. Device manufacturers, content creators, wireless carriers, infrastructure solution vendors and handset manufacturers use the company's standards-based products and solutions to create, deliver and predictably render visually rich information and entertainment. BitFlash is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada.

About the BitFlash Mobile SVG Player

The BitFlash Mobile SVG Player is the world's only fully compliant SVG player for mobile handsets. It can be integrated into a handset at multiple levels and is designed to support rich, predictable, and interactive Mobile SVG graphics and animations in a small footprint. Based on W3C specifications, it is also compliant with the 3GPP's recent mandate for SVG Tiny support on next-generation multimedia messaging service (MMS) devices.

About the BitFlash Document Viewing System

BitFlash DVS allows Mobile email system vendors, MMS infrastructure and terminal software vendors, System integrators deploying wireless enterprise applications, Vendors of any network-based or clientserver wireless application to offer users the ability to wirelessly receive and view popular desktop file formats such as Microsoft Office files, Adobe PDF documents and others, on a wide variety of mobile devices, over almost any wireless network.

The BitFlash Document Viewing System for Wireless preserves the formatting, layout, images and graphics from the original document, and enables features such as zooming in/out and multi-page document handling, even on low-memory, low-power mass-market handsets.

About Sharp

Sharp Corporation is a worldwide developer of innovative products and core technologies that play a role in shaping the future of electronics. As a leader in Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) and other digital technologies, Sharp offers one of the broadest and more advanced line of customer electronics, information products, and electronic components, while also creating new network businesses. Sharp Corporation currently employs approximately 55,100 people around the world and recorded consolidated annual sales of over 2,003,210 million yen for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003. For more information, please visit Sharp's Web site at http://sharp-world.com/index.html.

About SharpMotionART(SMART) Player

SharpMotionART (SMART) is a total network service solution that consists of an authoring tool, a playback engine and server software. SMART is used to render figures and images using vector graphics within mobile handsets. SMART delivers content and services using a small file size so that only key frames are transmitted to handsets while additional frames are automatically interpolated by the playback engine on the handset.

One of the first 'killer' applications for the new SVG enabled handset-the Sharp V601SH-will be the ability to access and view office documents that have been converted to Mobile SVG and delivered over the air. The BitFlash Document Viewing System for Wireless preserves the formatting, layout, images and graphics from the original document, and enables features such as zooming in/out and multi-page document handling.

BitFlash Contact

Don Liberty
Director, Business Development
Open Text Corporation, BitFlash Division
T: +1.613.599.9335 ext.3322
don.liberty@bitflash.com