BSD.L Regulatory News (BSD)

16 Jan 2006 07:01

Emblaze Ltd16 January 2006 Emblaze Group Acquires Majority Interest in Israeli Mobile Technology Startup, Smart Content Ra'anana, Israel, January 16, 2006: Emblaze Ltd (Emblaze or "the Group") (LSE:BLZ), the next generation telecom vendor group, announces that it has enteredinto an agreement to acquire majority interest in Israeli based softwaretechnology company, Smart Content, developer of highly advanced technology forContent-Push over wireless and IP networks to mobile devices and personalcomputers. Impact on cash from Group reserves is negligible. The Internet represents the wealth of human knowledge accumulated over thedecades and constantly growing. It becomes increasingly difficult to sort outand receive relevant information by users worldwide and it is especiallydifficult in the mobile environment. Emblaze believes that a significant part of the solution will be formalized in amanner of personalized push of user specific content. Push technology was regarded as the industry "Holy Grail" before the tech boom but was never implementedin a manner that created mass adoption. Smart Content's technology is considered to be the "missing link" that will allow users to receive real-time personalized content directly on their devicespersonal computers. Their current FreeMate technology automatically collectsinformation from the web, routes, and "pushes" a variety of digital content pre-defined as relevant by any mobile or PC user. Such technologies are essential ascontent and vital information are converging into everyday lives and devices asusers demand relevant content to be present and directly available to them at all times without thinking or doing anything in order to actually get it. Thetrend is towards receiving quick updates, accurate information and personalizedcontent at work, at home and on the move. Emblaze intends to drive the FreeMate technology roadmap to be adapted into themobile environment and physically embedded into Emblaze Mobile devices over thecoming year which will create a significant advantage of its devices overpotential competition and will create a new class of terminals that address themobile needs beyond a regular voice call. The company will become an integral part of the Emblaze group and its name willbe changed to Emblaze Smart Content. Besides the embedding of the Smart Content engines into Emblaze Mobile devices,Smart Content already produces a free client using the previous generationtechnology which is available to the general public for download and installation over any mobile device. Smart Content is managed and driven by highly experienced and professional exIsraeli Defence Forces team representing many years of research development ininformation gathering and distribution over complex IP infrastructure systems. Eli Reifman, CEO of Emblaze, said: "We have long been looking for an advancedcontent push technology to be embedded within our devices. I have no doubt thatthis is the future. The knowledge and skill-sets within this realm of expertisehas come to fruition only over the past two years. The team that now joins ourgroup is one of the top in the world with more experience and deep understandingof the push-content challenges than anyone we have met. This technology willbecome a part of our overall group offering already this year and we expect itto be pivotal in value creation and increase of group revenue and overallperformance in the short and medium term." Enquiries EmblazeDoron Cohen / Hagit Gal + 972 9 7699831 / 339 Corfin CommunicationsHarry Chathli, Neil Thapar + 44 20 7929 8989 Notes to Editor About The Emblaze Group (Emblaze LTD) Emblaze Ltd is a group of companies sharing a common mission to provide telecomoperators with technologies, products and solutions for next generationservices: Emblaze Mobile, a new breed in handsets design and manufacturing;Adamind (LSE: ADA), a global leader in content adaptation (transcoding) forwireless operators; Visual Defence (LSE: VDI), a provider of wireless and IPvideo solutions for military and homeland security markets; Emblaze VCON, is aleading provider of wireless video communications technologies and conferencingsolutions for operators and enterprise markets over IP networks and OrcaInteractive (LSE: ORCA), provider of Interactive Television IPTV middleware forVideo On Demand (VOD) and broadcast services, aimed at Telecom, cable and xDSLoperators. Emblaze Group is traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: BLZ) since 1996 andhas offices in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, China, Korea andIsrael. www.Emblaze.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange