Summus and Snapfish to Create LeadingWireless Photo Offering; New Application IsPowered by BlueFuel(TM) Architecture RALEIGH, N.C. and SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., July 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Summus, Inc. (USA) (OTC Bulletin Board: SUMU - News), a leader in the development of efficient information processing solutions for mobile and wireless devices, and Snapfish, the nation's leading online photo service, today announced they have signed a multi-year revenue-sharing agreement whereby the two companies will develop and co-market Snapfish Mobile, a new wireless personal photo application powered by BlueFuel(TM), Summus' multimedia architecture for wireless and mobile devices. The Snapfish Mobile application will target Snapfish's customer base of over three million and other wireless users. It will offer users the ability to access their images on the Snapfish network via a wireless phone and in the future via a PDA.
Snapfish Mobile is targeted for release by major wireless carrier networks beginning in the third quarter of this year. InfoTrends estimates that online photo services revenue is growing 30 percent to 40 percent per year and will reach $200M by 2006.
Under the terms of the agreement, Summus will work with Snapfish to develop the Snapfish Mobile application for use on the BREW, J2ME and Pocket PC platforms. The business terms of the agreement include revenue sharing between the two companies from the Snapfish Mobile application. Snapfish, whose members have over 50 million images online, plans to actively promote the application to its members.
"Snapfish Mobile is positioned to be the leader in wireless imaging as we leverage our customer base and apply our successful strategy of ease of use and best value," said Raj Kapoor, president and co-founder of Snapfish. "We selected Summus' BlueFuel architecture due to its enhanced functionality that enables the delivery of high quality images over wireless networks faster and more efficiently than other multimedia architectures."
Snapfish Mobile will be a competitively priced wireless photo service that will give users the ability to view online photos and slide shows, order prints from their mobile phone and share photos from the phone to any e-mail address using their Snapfish address book. Snapfish Mobile will be developed to enable end-users to easily upgrade to Summus' exego(TM) service. With exego, wireless subscribers can access multimedia messaging and instant exchange, which allows them to also send and receive documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other files from any e-mail address. Snapfish Mobile users who upgrade to exego will have access to Snapfish Mobile features as well.
The BlueFuel platform will enable Snapfish Mobile users to quickly access and download their images. The two companies will also collaborate on the development of future image functionality, such as instant notification of new photos in their online account and enabling users to capture images off of their camera phone and store them on the Snapfish Web site.
"The market for wireless photo services is a great revenue opportunity for online photo companies," said Chris Kremer, executive vice president of sales & marketing at Summus. "Snapfish is a market leader, positioned to be the first to offer new wireless photo services. Our partnership enables us to bring an exciting new photo service to millions of wireless subscribers."
About Snapfish
Founded in 1999, the award-winning Snapfish is the leading online photo service offering the best value and unbeatable ease of use in digitization, printing, processing, editing, sharing and storage services. Snapfish was rated the top online photo service in a survey from PC Data and received top quality ratings from Popular Photography. Snapfish targets the majority of the population owning film cameras, in addition to the growing number of digital camera users. When customers send film into Snapfish, they get a full set of prints on Kodak paper and a password-protected online album they can then use to edit, organize and share their photos. Digital camera users can also take advantage of free online sharing and unlimited storage, plus quality prints on Kodak paper. Additional information is available at http://www.snapfish.com .
About Summus
Summus, Inc. (USA) based in Raleigh, N.C., has developed a series of solutions to change the way information is communicated. Summus' solutions can be used to enable faster and more efficient delivery of rich media and more efficient access to information using wireless and mobile devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistant devices (PDAs). Summus' solutions are currently being used for such diverse purposes as scanning underwater mines for the U.S. Navy and capturing license plate images for EZPass. Trademarked products include the multi award-winning video email application, MaxxNote(TM), a ZDNet Editor's pick. For more information visit www.summus.com .
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