Kodiak Networks Launches European Headquarters; Former Motorola Executive to Head Operations for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Business Editors

SAN RAMON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 22, 2004

Kodiak Networks(TM), Inc., a leading provider of instant wireless voice systems, today announced the opening of its new European headquarters, following its commercial launch of Orange TalkNow Services, delivering advanced instant calling and conferencing service with instant presence and availability across the company's European operations.

John Caterer, an experienced wireless industry veteran and former Sales Executive with Motorola, Juniper and Comverse will run the European headquarters from Swindon, UK. He comments, "Kodiak Networks delivers an innovative instant wireless voice system to carriers so that they can offer premium calling services that attract new customers, increase customer retention and yield higher average revenue per user (ARPU). We are very excited by the prospects that exist for our solutions and services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa."

"We are already seeing that instant voice services are quite popular with businesses that need an easy and reliable way to better manage communication between teams of people within an organization. The technology is also ideal for consumers and provides a convenient new way to keep in touch with friends and family," he adds.

The first public European Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) wireless operator and Kodiak's first customer for the Kodiak Real-Time Exchange(TM) (RTX) is Orange, one of the largest multi-national wireless operators in the world serving more than 46 million customers in 19 countries. The service offered by Orange has already been found to speed decision making and improve customer service, including IBM in the U.K. Kodiak has also announced a CDMA instant voice system offering with U.S.-based ALLTEL, one of the top cellular providers in the country.

"It is important to note that Kodiak is the only vendor in the European market that currently supports all the global standards such as GSM, CDMA and the emerging third-generation standards such as UMTS. This allows customers to deploy infrastructure today that will address customer's instant communications needs for years to come," Caterer states.

Kodiak's Premium GSM instant voice services provide a close integration with existing GSM voice services which go far beyond so called "walkie-talkie" services. With Kodiak, intra-call voice latency is a consistent 150 milliseconds, compared to between 2,500 to 3,000 milliseconds or more for competing PoC technologies. The Kodiak RTX System also offers a number of premium instant voice calling features including:

-- Instant Calling - The fastest combined call set-up and voice

latency for instant voice communications in Europe 

-- Instant Availability - Display on handsets when contacts are

available to talk and when they are busy

-- Instant Conferencing - Facilitate instant conference calling

with personal and group contacts

-- In-Network/Out-of-Network Calling - The ability to engage in

instant voice calls with contacts that are the same or

different network

-- Permission-based Personal and Group Contact Management -

Allows users to be added only to contact lists they approve

About Kodiak Networks

Kodiak Networks (www.kodiaknetworks.com) is the leading instant wireless voice systems innovator for carriers worldwide. The Kodiak Real-Time Exchange(TM) (RTX) System is a breakthrough in integrated instant voice calling, availability, and conferencing. The standards-based Kodiak RTX System can be integrated into any existing digital cellular network, enabling carriers to increase profit, customer retention, and attract new customers without costly retrofit to network infrastructure.

Kodiak Networks has partnerships with several global providers of handset technology. The company has numerous patents pending in the areas of high-speed packet-switching, signalling and call control. Headquartered in San Ramon, California, the company has additional facilities in Plano, Texas, and Bangalore, India, and Swindon, United Kingdom.