News
Issue #2002 - 04 (January 2002)
(Updated Jan. 30, 2002)

INFRASTRUCTURE, PRODUCTS & SERVICES

Scan Mobile to Provide Games & Shopping Over Odigo's Integrated Instant Messaging Platform

Joint Offering Increases User Interaction with IM, Allowing Carriers and Companies to Monetize their Customer Base

New York, NY, January 23, 2002 -- Scan Mobile, a SMS/IM wireless technology company, and OdigoTM, Inc., the leading provider of Instant Messaging and Presence solutions, announced today a technology partnership and licensing agreement designed to extend the value of instant messaging beyond chat by offering entertainment, commerce, and enterprise applications. Through this agreement, Scan Mobile will offers its multiplayer Games and Commerce IM Smart Bots to Odigo users, allowing them to play games, purchase consumer goods, and, in the future, use other interactive applications over the Odigo mobile and desktop instant messaging platform.


"We are excited to enter into this partnership with Odigo as part of our strategic initiative to extend transactions and provide increased functionality into the mobile and desktop Instant Messaging space," said Bryon Colby, vice president of business development at Scan Mobile. "By adding interactive, two-way applications to its instant messaging platform, Odigo is able to expand its integrated SMS-IM services and offer a more robust feature-set to clients and end-users."

"The power of IM lies in its intuitive and immediate exchange of information. Extending the Odigo Open IM functionality to offer games and shopping is an excellent way for carriers and other companies to drive user interaction through these value-added services and increase their messaging revenues," said Ran Cohen of Odigo, Inc. "Scan Mobile's expertise in mobile transactions and applications - both in SMS and IM - makes them an ideal partner to provide these services to our users."

Odigo will begin rolling out Scan Mobile's Games and Shopping IM Smart Bots to their large installed consumer customer base in February, as well as offer the games to network operator partners. Some of the two-way games being offered include BlackJack, Word Jumble, and War, as well as a variety of advanced and multiplayer games such as Wrestling. The Shopping Bot will allow users to purchase CDs, DVDs and videos from a catalog of over 2 million items using conversational language requests, enabling simple and easy transactions.

About Scan, Inc.
Scan Mobile is a leading provider of marketing, entertainment and commerce applications and platform technology that enable carriers and companies to engage consumers and monetize interactions through SMS, IM, or two-way messaging. The Scan Mobile Interaction platform enables users to query back-end databases and complete purchases using conversational language requests over mobile phones, two-way pagers and Instant Messaging platforms. Scan's services and technology are licensed by partners such as Vizzavi, WebLink Wireless, mTicket, and UPOC. The company was founded in December 1999, and has offices in New York and London. Investors include Investor AB, idealab!, and Primedia Corporation. For more information visit www.scan.com.

About Odigo, Inc.
Odigo, Inc. is the leading provider of Instant Messaging and Presence Solutions to wireless carriers, Telcos, ISPs, and portals worldwide. Odigo's products include IM Servers, SMS-IM Gateways, and Presence Management Solutions. Odigo, founded in 1998, is a U.S. based company with headquarters
in New York City. Over 100 companies have licensed Odigo's IM Solutions, including British Telecom, NEC, Austria Telecom, Hungary Telecom, Prodigy, StarMedia, Netease, DreamNet (of NTT DATA and NTT DoCoMo), Sympatico Lycos, and others.

For More Information: www.odigo.com

Mobileinfo Comments & Advisory:  We are bullish about SMS-based applications in North America. Scan Mobile has the potential of executing its business model successfully. We wish them luck because we need SMS applications in North America. It will never reach the levels of Europe for a variety of reasons but There is enough potential for a few companies to succeed. We would encourage Scan Mobile and Odigo to address SMS inter-operability problem among networks . Even though ultimate solution would and should come from carriers, you can build an interim solution. 

Note: This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Readers should take appropriate caution in developing plans utilizing these products, services and technology architectures.  All trademarks used in this summary are the property of their respective owners.