BEIJING, China, May 12, 2005 — PalmSource, Inc. (NASDAQ: PSRC), provider of Palm OS®, a leading operating system powering next generation phones and mobile devices, today launched Palm Powered Mobile World™ (PPMW) in China and welcomed mobile operator China Unicom NewSpace, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Unicom Limited ("China Unicom") (HKSE: 0762, NYSE: CHU) to the program.
PalmSource and China Unicom New Space, along with Samsung Electronics, today also announced that the Samsung SCH-i539 is now available on the CDMA network in China through China Unicom NewSpace, and is the first Palm Powered smartphone to be available in Mainland China.
With over 112 million wireless subscribers, China Unicom is the world's second largest CDMA operator, third largest GSM operator, and the provider of paging, long-distance, broadband data and mobile communications services. China is the world's largest and one of the fastest growing markets for mobile phones, with about 330 million mobile phone subscribers and about 240 million handsets manufactured for domestic use and export in 2004 (source ARC, MII).
China Unicom joins existing PPMW mobile operator partners Orange, Sprint and Telefónica Móviles España, in addition to more than a dozen infrastructure and middleware partners in the program designed to capitalize on the growing market.
As a member of the Palm Powered Mobile World Program, China Unicom New Space will work together with PalmSource in a number of areas including:
- Collaborating to align the Palm OS platform roadmap with the product requirements of China Unicom New Space in order to facilitate the deployment of next generation Palm Powered smartphones; and
- Engaging in joint marketing activities to identify and promote key third-party Palm OS applications and solutions that meet the needs of China Unicom New Space wireless customers.
"We are pleased to join Palm Powered Mobile World and bring our expertise in wireless voice and next generation data services to Palm Powered™ devices, said Song XiaoBing, CEO, China Unicom NewSpace. "We look forward to our continued collaboration with PalmSource in the PPMW program to offer our customers a wide variety of Palm Powered devices and solutions that take advantage of our high-speed data service and also deliver an enhanced user experience."
"We are committed to providing customers with an industry leading platform that includes our partnerships with leading mobile operators such as China Unicom NewSpace," said Dr. David Nagel, PalmSource president and CEO. "As a charter member of Palm Powered Mobile World China, China Unicom NewSpace is enabling us to provide a strong foundation for the Palm Powered Economy in China."
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