WiderThan Expands Its Play in Europe by Teaming Up With Beep Science to Offer Secure Music Services to Carriers

Partnership Will Support European Carriers and Record Labels to Drive the Digital Music Phenomenon 


BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 15  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- 3GSM World Congress -- WiderThan (NASDAQ:WTHN), a leading global provider of integrated mobile entertainment solutions for wireless carriers, today announced that it will partner with Beep Science, a leading provider of mobile Digital Rights Management software, to enable European operators to securely provide users with instant access to full track Music On Demand (MoD) services on their mobile phones.

The partnership will bring together WiderThan's WiderMusic(TM) Service Platform and Beep Science's end-to-end Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Digital Rights Management (DRM) high security protection for music and video content. Together the companies will enable carriers to launch stable and cost- effective digital music services while also allowing record labels to work more closely with carriers to drive more rapid growth for the MoD business.

WiderThan brings a proven track record in the mobile music industry to the partnership.  Together with SK Telecom, WiderThan launched the first ubiquitous mobile music service in Korea using SKT-DRM which is compatible with OMA standard DRM.  WiderThan also provides the support infrastructure for Verizon Wireless' Microsoft-DRM based music service in the U.S.  WiderThan is now strengthening its global market position by partnering with Beep Science, a leading DRM company with a strong presence in Europe.

WiderThan's WiderMusic(TM) Service Platform enables mobile operators to offer complete music services to their mobile subscribers, allowing consumers to use and enjoy music services on wired/wireless network environments at any time, in any place.

The Beep Science's DRM Server is interoperable with all OMA DRM capable handsets, mp3 players, PC music players and other personal media players. With the Beep Science downloadable OMA DRM plug-in for PC music players, operators can create flexible music services where the end-user can consume music across devices, and transfer music between a PC, phone and other OMA DRM capable devices.

Commenting on the announcement, Larry Moores, Senior Vice President, Global Business Division, at WiderThan said, "The initial wave of mobile entertainment solutions was dominated by ringtones and ringback tones (RBT) but as mobile music services diversify and evolve the need for enhanced services and simplified management of those new services increases as mobile operators seek to stay ahead of the competition.  The linking of WiderThan with Beep Science will deliver exactly that."

"The joint WiderThan and Beep Science solution gives mobile operators a scalable and future proof platform to run music services," said Markku Mehtala, VP Business Development at Beep Science.  "By using open standard DRM the solution works with the majority of devices in the marketplace, and addresses the content security issues, without having to install specific proprietary media players and DRM agents into the handsets."

With full track MoD services becoming one of the most popular applications in a 3G wireless environment it is vitally important to maintain a healthy mobile content ecosystem and use a DRM solution to protect the content owner, the service provider and the end user.  Beep Science not only supports complete interoperability with any mobile device with its proven OMA DRM Server system but also supports DRM for PC client for Internet MoD services, enabling the WiderMusic(TM) Service Platform to not be limited to just fixed/wireless networks but also provide diverse service and billing methods.

About WiderThan

WiderThan is a leading provider of integrated mobile entertainment solutions for wireless carriers.  Our applications, content and services enable wireless carriers to provide a broad range of mobile entertainment, such as ringback tones, music-on-demand, mobile games, ringtones, messaging and information services, to their subscribers.  WiderThan currently provides mobile entertainment solutions to 42 wireless carriers in 17 countries, including SK Telecom in Korea, Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless in the United States, Bharti Airtel in India and Globe Telecom in the Philippines.

About Beep Science AS

Beep Science AS is a leading provider of Mobile Digital Rights Management software solutions.  Founded in 2000, the company represents one of the largest specialist resource centers into mobile DRM technology.  Beep Science has its head offices in Oslo, Norway, and has Research & Development site in Szeged, Hungary.  Beep Science operates in Europe, Asia and America.

Beep Science is an independent software vendor providing client and server side DRM software products based on open industry standard from Open Mobile Alliance.  The company's DRM vision is to support any content format, media player, operating system, device, network and content delivery platform with state of the art open standard DRM technology for both the client and server side.

Beep Science has partnerships with leading technology providers and infrastructure vendors, and co-operates with leading software integrators and solutions providers in customer projects for end-to-end solutions.  Beep Science has world-class brands in the Media and Telecom Industry as customers. For further information, please visit: http://www.beepscience.com/. 

First Call Analyst: 

FCMN Contact: 

DATASOURCE: WiderThan



CONTACT:  Emma Williamson of Fleishman-Hillard, [phone],

, for WiderThan; Namhee Park of WiderThan,

[phone], ; or Sissel Henriette Larsen of Beep

Science AS, [phone], 



Web site:  http://www.widerthan.com/

http://www.beepscience.com/ 

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