Colibria Assembles Industry Experts on High Level Advisory Panel

Colibria establishes a high level industry advisory panel, drawing on expertise from leading world specialists in mobile and fixed telecommunications.

Colibria AS, the leading international developer of mobile instant messaging and presence (IMPS) technology platforms, has announced the creation of an Advisory Panel, comprising three leading industry experts - Mr Balaji Bal, Dr Charles W K Gritton, and Dr Peter Radley. The Colibria Advisory Panel will meet on a regular basis to provide high level strategic technology input to Colibria, ensuring that the company remains at the forefront of presence-driven communications technology.

Commenting on the formation of the Colibria Advisory Panel, CEO Keith Gibson said: "It is extremely gratifying that such respected and talented experts are prepared to lend their time and expertise to Colibria, contributing to the next round of innovation in the field of IMPS, IMS and SIP developments. Presence is a major growth area of the industry, across voice, SMS and MMS applications. When you combine this with the exciting potential offered by Instant Messaging developments, we believe that it will quite literally change the way we all communicate in the future. Colibria has a track record for innovative product development, and with the backing of our new Advisory Panel, we believe we will set new standards for mobile messaging and presence."

The Colibria Advisory Panel meets for the first time in early 2005, with the objective of providing fresh input to Colibria's ongoing programme of strategic product development. The panel's contribution will complement Colibria's existing long-established relationships with customers and strategic partners, which have resulted in an ongoing series of product innovation and technology successes.

The Panel members comprise:
Mr Balaji Bal, whose extensive career has included 3d programming, virtual reality animation, e-commerce and wireless internet solutions. Bal is CTO of SurfKitchen, a software provider focused on powering the Dynamic User Experience (DUE), with the objective of enabling the rapid development of advanced mobile data services. Bal co-founded the company in 1999. Bal studied architecture at the School of Architecture in Ahmedabad, India, with his wide-ranging interests including architectural and design theory, distributed computing, economics and Social Networks.

Dr Charles W K Gritton, PhD, who has developed dozens of patents during his 20+ year career, majoring on signal processing, image processing, networking and videoconferencing in the telecommunications, wireless communications, cable, consumer and PC markets. He is currently Chief Technology Officer of Hillcrest, a company focused on interactive television technology, where he is responsible for technology strategies, product architectures and research. Dr Gritton received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering with Highest Distinction, Masters of Engineering in Electrical Engineering, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Dr Peter Radley, PhD, who is an independent consultant to a number of blue chip commercial organisations, and to public sector bodies including the DTI. He is Chairman of Infomatrix (software solutions for mobile communications), and a Non-Executive Director of Powerlase (lasers for materials processing) and of Zedmatrix (WiFi networks). Dr Radley is one of the key players in realising 'Broadband Britain', with involvement from 2001 onwards. Until 2002, he was Chairman for Alcatel's businesses in the UK and Ireland; with the UK business encompassing Alcatel's entire product portfolio, from submarine networks to satellites, telecom networks to end-user equipment. Dr Radley is a graduate of Cambridge University, holding his PhD in Computer Aided Design.

Colibria is unveiling its new generation core network mobile platforms at the 3GSM World Congress, taking place in Cannes from 14-17 February 2005. The carrier-grade Colibria Companion Instant Messaging and Presence Server is a scalable, flexible and future-proof solution that is designed to support advanced presence, messaging, and multimedia services quickly and economically. Colibria offers mobile operators a standardised platform concept that will support network and service evolution seamlessly and efficiently, enabling converged presence-driven communications to be realised on IMPS and IMS-enabled networks. The Colibria Companion is a powerful messaging and presence enabler, delivering certified OMA WV support for presence, instant messaging, groups, shared content and core features. It contains powerful presence interfaces and APIs that can be used to share presence information between a variety of applications, over and above core Instant Messaging functionality. This supports existing and new applications that use presence information more intelligently, enhancing standard telecom services - for example, SMS, MMS, voice calls, games and communities where the emphasis is on meeting new friends and encouraging group interaction.

About Colibria
Established in 2000, Colibria is a technology leader in the field of instant messaging and presence systems, with its IMPS and Communities solutions widely deployed by a variety of mobile operators - including Cable & Wireless, Enitel, Globe Telecom, Megatel, Telefonica Moviles and Telenor Mobil - in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Colibria's new generation core network mobile platforms are scalable and flexible solutions that provide the vital infrastructure to support advanced new presence, messaging, and multimedia services quickly and economically - fully supporting IMPS today, as well as ensuring a seamless use of IMPS and SIP for future IMS-enabled networks. Colibria's new generation carrier-grade IM and presence servers are designed to provide operators with a seamless future-proof pathway to support network and service evolution.

The company operates from locations in Norway, the Philippines and the UK, and is a member of the Open Mobile Alliance, contributing extensively to the OMA IMPS (previously Wireless Village) forum. Colibria is highly active in interoperability testing, and provides server test access to the major OMA IMPS client vendors.

For more information, please contact:
Liv Anne Løkka
Colibria AS
5/F Lysaker Torg
Postboks 255
1326 Lysaker
Norway
Tel: + 47 67 11 35 00
Fax: + 47 67 11 35 01
Email: lokka@colibria.com
Web: www.colibria.com

Georgina Garrett/Simon Jones
Garrett Axford
Harbour House
27 High Street
Shoreham by Sea
West Sussex
BN43 5DD, UK
Tel: +44 1273 441200
Fax: +44 1273 441300
Email: mail@garrett-axford.co.uk
Web: www.garrett-axford.co.uk