Product category: Embedded Software and Operating Systems
News Release from: Zi Corp | Subject: eZiText and eZiTap
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 19 February 2004

Software integration speeds
time to market

Zi's proprietary eZiText and eZiTap predictive text technologies now work seamlessly with the Microsoft Windows Mobile software for Smartphones

Zi Corp has worked closely with Microsoft Corp to develop a new software system designed to enable Zi's proprietary eZiText and eZiTap predictive text technologies to work seamlessly with the Microsoft Windows Mobile software for Smartphones. The new solution, called an input method editor (IME), will provide significant time-to-market savings and superior usability to original equipment and design manufacturers (OEMs and ODMs) that use Zi's predictive text technologies.

The IME is available from Zi for use by handset manufacturers, the first of which is Sierra Wireless, an innovative wireless technology company.

Sierra Wireless has licensed eZiText Chinese and eZiTap English and employed the Zi IME as part of its new line of Voq Professional Phones, which uses Windows Mobile 2003 software for Smartphones.

Sales of the new Voq Professional Phone are targeted at business professionals and are expected to begin in the first half of 2004.

"Microsoft created Windows Mobile with the goal of providing a rich platform upon which our partners could develop innovative technologies that help transform the way mobile business is conducted", said Julie Wymetalek, Manager of the MPAC Programme at Microsoft.

"We're pleased to work with partners like Zi Corporation, which is creating innovative solutions like eZiText and eZiTap that help users more easily communicate on the go using their Windows Mobile-based devices".

Smartphones are the next big growth opportunity in the handset space.

According to Gartner Group, smartphones will make up nearly a quarter of the handset market by 2008, shipping some 150 million units.

Research completed by the Yankee Group also reports that there is an upcoming spike in the adoption of smartphones and the Voq Professional phone's key features including the flip-open qwerty thumbpad, make it a formidable offering in this market space.

Due to Sierra Wireless's expertise in providing wireless data solutions for mobile business users and its existing global network of wireless operators and corporate technology channels, it is well positioned to succeed in the smartphone market.

Andrew Harries, Senior Vice President Marketing for Sierra Wireless, said his company selected Zi's predictive text technologies "because of their advanced features, flexibility and ease of use and because of Zi's working relationship with Microsoft a key partner of Sierra Wireless.

With their superior technical support and the availability of the IME, we are able to accelerate the implementation of these important text messaging features and shorten the time to market, which are important market advantages.

The Voq phone's unique qwerty thumbpad combined with Zi's efficient and intuitive text input interfaces for word prediction accommodate users for one hand operation".

Zi Corp President and CEO Mike Donnell said: "Joining forces with Microsoft creates an important collaborative affiliation for Zi.

As evidenced by our relationship with Sierra Wireless, it opens a number of new opportunities and positions us to further penetrate the market for advanced mobile devices.

Sierra Wireless has also built a solid reputation and business in developing and delivering productivity enhancing wireless solutions and it has a strong global network of customers and partners".

Zi engineers worked closely with Microsoft's development team to create a robust IME that resolves the entire text input interface and display of Zi's text input technologies on the Smartphone platform.

The IME has been extensively tested to ensure users experience a familiar Windows Mobile interface consistently across all the phone's applications and services.

For handset manufacturers, this means they can implement Zi's text input technologies and the IME without any additional man-machine interface (MMI) work and testing.

The Zi IME package for Windows Mobile-based smartphones includes a fully developed, localised interface, intuitive display, and user cues.

They combine to deliver a nonintrusive IME which runs inside any Windows Mobile-based application requiring text input.

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