Portal Software Enables I-MODE Service in Europe.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers CeBIT 2002 CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 14, 2002 Germany's Third Largest Mobile Operator to Launch Revolutionary Mobile Data and Content Services on Portal's Market-Leading Customer Management and Billing Platform Portal Software Portal Software was founded in 1985 as Portal Information Network, one of the first ISPs in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded by John Little. The company offered its own interface through modem access that featured Internet email. , Inc. (Nasdaq:PRSF PRSF Presidio of San Francisco (US National Park Service) PRSF Peoples Republic of San Francisco ), the leading provider of customer management and billing software, today announced that E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG, Germany's third largest mobile operator, has implemented Portal's Infranet(R) Wireless software platform to bill for the first launch of i-mode(TM) services outside of Japan. E-Plus, part of the KPN KPN Koninklijke PTT Nederland (Royal Dutch Telecom) KPN Konfederacja Polski Niepodleglej (Polish conservative party) Telecom Group, will officially launch the new service at the CeBIT 2002 conference, which begins this week in Hanover, Germany. The E-Plus win solidifies Portal's global leadership in customer management and billing platforms for mobile data and content services. i-mode, developed by NTT DoCoMo (NTT Mobile Communications Network, Inc., Japan) Founded in 1991, NTT DoCoMo is a spinoff of Japan's NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation) which provides wireless services, including cellular, paging, satellite and maritime and in-flight telephone services. , is the highly innovative, consumer-friendly model for mobile phone-based Internet services that currently supports more than 30 million subscribers in Japan. E-Plus will leverage the i-mode model to deliver new mobile services to subscribers across Germany on NEC (NEC Corporation, Tokyo, www.nec.com, www.necus.com) An electronics conglomerate known in the U.S. for its monitors. In Japan, it had the lion's share of the PC market until the late 1990s (see PC 98). NEC was founded in Tokyo in 1899 as Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. GSM/GPRS handsets with color screens. Initial services include e-mail, news, sports, weather, traffic, and entertainment information. KPN i-mode services for Belgium and The Netherlands are in final stages of development. "Portal's Infranet Wireless is the advanced and flexible convergent billing platform on the market today, which exceeded our stringent demands for the flexibility and openness required for third-party content charging," said Andreas Heinrich, i-mode Project Manager, E-Plus. "The Infranet Wireless platform will further enable us to launch new i-mode services and manage inter-party remittances with total confidence." E-Plus selected Infranet Wireless to support the introduction of i-mode to the European market after an extensive evaluation of Portal and its competitors. Key to the decision was the ability of Portal Professional Services (job) professional services - A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products. to install a business support platform in time and budget and to have it live and operational at E-Plus within a five-month schedule. Introducing an end-to-end coupling of E-Plus's legacy billing systems with the open and scalable Infranet was also key for the success of the project, empowering the company with the flexibility and functionality to support user subscriptions and a content value chain for the i-mode services. "Portal Software is thrilled to provide E-Plus with the strategic billing platform to bring its cutting edge service to Europe, and we look forward to building a long term relationship with the KPN group of companies," said Steve Sommer Sommer is a surname, from the German and Danish word for the season "summer". It may refer to:
E-Plus will offer i-mode subscriptions for a range of premium content. The new service will use NEC GSM/GPRS handsets with color screens running compact HTML See cHTML. for web browsing. Agreements with information providers will also be serviced through Infranet Wireless. As i-mode develops content for European users, Infranet will support its expansion across the E-Plus GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) The first high-speed digital data service provided by cellular carriers that used the GSM technology. GPRS added a packet-switched channel to GSM, which uses dedicated, circuit-switched channels for voice conversations. network. Portal's Professional Services Group is providing E-Plus with a full range of consulting, implementation, and technical support services support services Psychology Non-health care-related ancillary services–eg, transportation, financial aid, support groups, homemaker services, respite services, and other services for its i-mode service. Infranet Wireless will provide subscription tracking, premium content charging, and value chain remittances. The software will also support event-based billing with value pricing For the strategic management concept, see . In public roads and transport, value pricing or road pricing is the practice of raising funds by charging users directly rather than via taxation. for e-mail and other new i-mode services. About E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co. KG With 7.5 million customers (in 01/2002) E-Plus is the third-largest mobile phone provider in Germany. E-Plus business is based on profitable growth and its activities are guided strictly by operating results. Therefore E-Plus focuses on business and private target groups with a high turnover. E-Plus is one of the pioneers in mobile multimedia in Germany and with i-mode E-Plus offers access to mobile services at a quality previously unheard of in Europe. i-mode is fast and colourful and offers a comprehensive range of information, services and entertainment. Thanks to i-mode mail multimedia messaging with E-Plus has already become a reality. The choice of E-Plus services will become even greater with the start of UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) The GSM implementation of the 3G wireless phone system. Part of IMT-2000, UMTS provides service in the 2 GHz band and offers global roaming and personalized features. (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is one of the third-generation (3G) cell phone technologies. Currently, the most common form uses W-CDMA as the underlying air interface, is standardized by the 3GPP, and is the European answer to the ITU ). E-Plus is one of the six companies that will roll out and run a modern UMTS network in Germany in the next few years. E-Plus' shareholders are KPN Mobile N.V. with 77.49 per cent and the BellSouth Corp. with 22.51 per cent. BellSouth is going to exchange its shares in E-Plus for ordinary shares in Royal KPN N.V. The transaction is expected to be finalized in the second quarter of 2002, after which E-Plus will be fully owned by the KPN group. About Portal Software, Inc. Portal Software develops customer management and billing software for communications and content service providers. Portal's real-time, convergent platform enables its customers to rapidly define, deploy, and bill for services with flexible business models. Portal's software is licensed by a majority of the world's largest communications providers to deliver voice, data, video, and content services across wireless, wireline, cable, and satellite networks. Customers include Vodafone, AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. Time Warner, Deutsche Telekom, NTT NTT Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation NTT New Technology Telescope NTT National Technology Transfer, Inc NTT Name That Tune (TV game show) NTT National Tree Trust NTT Number Theoretic Transform , WorldCom, China Telecom, Reuters, Telstra, Sprint, China Mobile, Telenor Mobil, and France Telecom. For more information, visit www.portal.com. Note to Editors: Infranet is a U.S. registered trademark, and Portal and the Portal logo are trademarks of Portal Software, Inc. All statements made in this press release are made only as of the date set forth at the beginning of this release. Portal undertakes no obligation to update the information in the event facts or circumstances subsequently change. i-mode an d the i-mode logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. in Japan and other countries. |
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