OUTBLAZE Adds WAP Service to Product Suite Access to Web Site Services from Mobile Phones HONG KONG, JUNE 28, 2000/HK PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ -- Outblaze (http://www.outblaze.com/), the market leader in the development and provision of Web site solutions and consulting services, announced today a new mobile protocol independent WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) service that allows Outblaze clients to offer e-mail and other mobile interactive services to their own Internet users via mobile phones. The new WAP service enables users to perform e-mail functions on Powered by Outblaze Web sites by using WAP enabled wireless devices, including mobile telephones. Webmasters may now offer their own users the convenience of mobile electronic messaging with access to Outblaze services via mobile phones. The WAP functionalities allow a user to read and respond to e-mail using only a mobile phone. This marks the first step taken by Outblaze toward a more comprehensive mobile protocol independent wireless strategy. Mobile services add a high degree of convenience to users who are frequently on the road, and Outblaze Web services rely on their ubiquitous Web accessibility as one of their selling points. The "Me Want WAP" Web site has been launched as the beta site for testing the system at http://www.mewantwap.com. In order to make use of the WAP functionalities, users have to configure their phones' WAP settings to point to the following address: http://www.mewantwap.com/wap/index.wml. Mobile telephony and mobile Internet are the boom technologies of the near future. The WAP Forum predicts that by 2003 as many as 525 million WAP enabled handsets will be sold in the United States and Europe. Forrester Research predicts that one third of all Europeans will use Internet services on their mobile phones on a regular basis by the year 2004. Mobile telephony and mobile Internet also hold a high appeal for Asia: countries such as India and China have high populations, low PC penetration, and limited infrastructure; in such an environment it is often simpler to set up access to the Internet through a mobile phone rather than through a desktop computer, which has to be connected by traditional means to a cable and an Internet Service Provider. In China, for example, there are approximately 40 million mobile phone users today, and that number is expected to grow to over 100 million by the end of 2001. By contrast, there are only about 12.3 million people online in China according to Interacti "The Wireless industry in Asia is growing exponentially," said Outblaze Founder and CEO Yat Siu. "With Wireless access gaining popularity, many WAP-WML [Wireless Mark-up Language] sites have begun to sprout. Outblaze intends to stay ahead in the industry and on the technological spectrum. Freeing information from desktops is a great advance, and by providing our clients with this technology, we hope that they can be forerunners in this arena as well." About Outblaze Outblaze, founded in May 1998 in Hong Kong, is Asia's first Internet company to recognize and anticipate the massive market demand for community-oriented Web site services and solutions. The mission of Outblaze is to develop, offer, and manage multilingual portal, Web site, and messaging services to content Web sites and corporations. Outblaze services are provided free of charge in Co-brand partnerships, or sold on a cost per user per month basis in the Enterprise model. Partners and customers of Outblaze combine their Web site content and audience reach with Outblaze Web site services to create compelling vertical portals - sites that combine rich category-specific content with the same community services offered by the major Internet portals. At the time of writing, Outblaze is a key technology solutions provider to thousands of Web sites, with more than eight million daily page views and five million registered users of its technology. The company's headquarters are in Hong Kong, while offices are situated in Beijing, Germany, and Silicon Valley; hosting and co-location are arranged regionally throughout the world. Outblaze is a privately held company with strategic investments from Pacific Century CyberWorks, Hikari Tsushin, and Lotus Asset Management. For more information, please visit the company's corporate Web site at corp.outblaze.com. FOR FURTHER MEDIA INFORMATION: Ibrahim El-Mouelhy Director of Corporate Communications, Outblaze Ltd. E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +852-2534-1234 Fax: +852-2832-7807 SOURCE: OUTBLAZE