Sasken’s Services Division & Open-Plug
announce partnership.
To set up a competence centre for engineering delivery

Bangalore and Sophia Antipolis, February 9, 2006: The Services Division of Sasken, a pioneer in telecom R & D outsourcing, and Open-Plug, a software editor of open platform for wireless terminals today announced a partnership that will allow Sasken to provide software integration and project management services to handset makers using the Open-Plug ELIPS platform.

As part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the Services Division of Sasken will setup an Open-Plug Competence Centre that will focus on building capabilities around the ELIPS open software platform. The Competence Centre will also work with Open-Plug to develop reference demonstrators based on ELIPS.

This initiative by the Services Division of Sasken will enable handset OEMs licensing ELIPS to rapidly deliver fully customized ready-to-market mobile phone software, with improved time-to-market. They will take advantage of the unique flexibility of Open-Plug’s ELIPS open software platform, including a software framework and MMI which can be customized very easily by the Sasken engineering team.

Open-Plug’s CEO, Eric Baissus, said, “We’re delighted to work so closely with the Services Division of Sasken to simplify and accelerate the design of wireless terminals. Sasken’s Services Division complements our offering to handset vendors by providing engineering services and support for ELIPS. This partnership offers handset makers an alternative to the “do it yourself” approach by proposing customized “ready-to-use” solutions. By leveraging the Open-Plug ELIPS technology and their expertise in software integration, test and validation, they will deliver the solutions that customers need. Moreover, and this is a very important aspect for us, Sasken immediately understood the potential of our technology in terms of emerging usages, such as on-the-air download and update services.”

Santosh Xavier , Head of the Terminal Devices Business Unit, a part of Sasken’s Services Division said, “We have been committed to providing our phone customers with support spanning across technologies and platforms. We are pleased with this opportunity to partner with Open-Plug’s ELIPS platform and are keen to support its success. This partnership was decided after thorough evaluation and testing of ELIPS in our labs. We chose it for its breakthrough component-based technology, its flexibility and its ability to run on a wide range of chipset platforms. With this partnership, we add yet another substantive solution to our exisiting services portfolio that will enable our customers to ship feature rich phones faster.”

About Sasken’s Services Division

S asken is an embedded telecom solutions company that helps businesses across the telecom value chain accelerate product development life cycles. Established in 1989, Sasken employs over 2500 people at its offices in India, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, UK and the U.S. Sasken’s Services Division works with global, Tier 1 companies across the telecom value chain of network equipment manufacturers, semiconductor vendors, terminal device manufacturers, test and measurement companies, and operators, providing software development, sustenance, and testing services spanning a range of evolutionary telecom technologies.

About Open-Plug

Open-Plug creates and commercializes the first open software framework designed for mass-market phones. The Open-Plug ELIPS Product Suite relies on a unique component-based technology, which drastically simplifies and secures all the phases of mobile phone software development, integration and deployment. It enables mobile operators and handset makers to create, update and customize their phones in record time, while keeping full control over their design and development cycle. Created in 2002, Open-Plug is a private company financed by leading-edge investors. Headquartered in France, the company also operates from its Asian offices. Open-Plug is a founding member and an active promoter of the LiPS Forum. For further information visit: www.open-plug.com