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SOMA Networks Partners with Zentek Technology Group to Create Innovative Multimedia Services for SOMA System. Leading Software Developer for the Consumer Electronics Industry Will Take Advantage of SOMA's Unique Service Creation Platform San Francisco, February 25, 2002 - SOMA Networks today announced a strategic partnership with Zentek Technology Group, a leading provider of software services to the consumer electronics industry, to develop voice, data, and multimedia applications for SOMA's fixed wireless "last-mile" solution. Zentek joins SOMA's family of third-party software development partners creating new service offerings for the SOMA system, which features a revolutionary distributed software environment and state-of the-art IP wireless access to deliver carrier-grade voice and broadband Internet access to homes and small offices. SOMA Networks and Zentek have begun collaborative efforts to integrate Zentek-developed services into SOMA's broadband wireless system, which recently completed successful field trials with North American carriers. Zentek, which has development centers in both Silicon Valley and Japan, has also made a significant financial investment in SOMA Networks' most recent round of equity offerings. This investment reflects Zentek's commitment to the strategic partnership and its belief that the SOMA technology will engender a richness of service offerings never before possible in the telecommunications market. Leveraging Zentek's established technical expertise in digital television and wireless applications, SOMA Networks will work with the Japanese software development company to create innovative services that take advantage of SOMA's unique distributed service creation and delivery platform, known as Amos™. Building on the SOMA system's core suite of voice, calling features, and Internet access offerings, Zentek will focus its development efforts on creating advanced services such as multimedia messaging combining voice, e-mail, and video; remote control of home appliances, home security systems, and home environmental controls; broadcast streaming; and multimedia entertainment features. "The opportunity for increased services that drive subscriber demand and create new revenue streams for service providers is now greater than ever," said Yatish S. Pathak, President and CEO of SOMA Networks. "With its experience in creating dynamic, new applications for digital television and mobile phones, Zentek will enhance the power of the SOMA system with the next generation of multimedia service offerings." SOMA Networks' non-line-of-sight fixed wireless solution fundamentally changes the economics of creating and delivering telecommunications services by enabling the flexible creation and rapid deployment of mass-customized, personalized services. Unlike the traditional "central office" model of telecommunications, the SOMA system transforms the network edge into a massively scalable distributed computing environment controlled by Amos. This network includes SOMA's customer premises equipment, the SOMAport™, an intelligent home gateway appliance, as well as SOMA's basestation, the NPM™, which also functions as a wireless IP service node. Amos facilitates the convergence of transport, control, and processing through a unified application environment. Empowered by an open architecture, Amos provides for end-to-end application development involving a single interface - the Java-based Application Programming Interface (API). Using a powerful Software Development Kit (SDK), Zentek and other developers can rapidly integrate and deploy services without requiring system downtime, software upgrades, or long proprietary development cycles. The ease and speed by which new services can be deployed overcome the historical economic hurdles that have limited telecom service innovation. By cost-effectively providing value-added services targeted to narrow customer segments, service providers can, for the first time, truly distinguish themselves from their competition. "The distributed nature of SOMA Networks' architecture and the openness of its service creation and delivery platform will revolutionize the quality and quantity of services that service providers can offer to their customers," said Shozo Ohtani, Zentek's President and CEO. "By partnering with SOMA Networks, Zentek will build on its core competencies in software development for the consumer electronics market while at the same time position itself at the forefront of the coming explosion in telecom service development - much like what we've witnessed in the personal computer and web-server industries - enabled by SOMA's system." About SOMA Networks: About Zentek Technology Group
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