COLLABORA JOINS ACCESS GLOBAL PARTNER PROGRAM

Cambridge, UK, 25 October 2007: Open source development experts Collabora (www.collabora.co.uk) today announced that it is supporting the ACCESS Linux Platform™ by joining the ACCESS™ Connect Ecosystem (ACE) (www.access-company.com) partner programme.

Through the ACE programme, Collabora will use its expertise in real time communications, notably with the Telepathy project and its unrivalled multimedia experience in the GStreamer framework to drive forward mobile Linux and help fuel the growth of converged technologies and devices. Collabora will provide its software development skills to organisations looking to develop applications on the ACCESS Linux Platform. Other members of ACE include ARM, Mentor Graphics, Movial, Orange, OpenedHand and Fluendo.

Industry figures demonstrate that mobile Linux is gaining momentum. ABI Research predicts that over 127 million devices will be enabled with a commercial Linux OS by 2012 and that its use as an RTOS replacement will grow to over 76 million units by the same date.

“The mobile Linux market is on the cusp of rapid growth as companies and users see the benefits of adopting open source technologies,” commented Robert McQueen, director, Collabora. “By joining forces with other leading organisations through the ACCESS Connect Ecosystem we can bring our unique development strengths in real time communication and multimedia to help accelerate this growth, benefiting the whole community.”

Already used in the Nokia N810 and N800 Internet Tablets and One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, Collabora’s Telepathy (http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/) real time communication project provides a unified framework for all forms of real time conversations, including instant messaging, IRC, voice calls and video calls. It incorporates Farsight, Collabora’s media streaming library. Collabora’s recently opened multimedia division boasts over 25 years of experience, notably with the GStreamer multimedia framework.

“Collabora has strong knowledge in the key technologies within the ACCESS Linux Platform,” commented Albert Chu, vice president, marketing and alliances,
ACCESS. “This makes them the perfect choice for our customers who are looking to develop on the ACCESS Linux Platform, particularly in the areas of multimedia and communications.”

Both Collabora and ACCESS are founder members of GNOME Mobile Initiative (http://www.gnome.org/mobile/). GNOME Mobile aims to apply the technology, philosophy and experience of the open source desktop GNOME project to the world of mobile, handheld and embedded devices. By pooling the growing knowledge and experience of those using the GNOME platform in the mobile and embedded sector it seeks to drive increased market adoption.

The ACE partner program (www.access-company.com/partners) is designed to create an ecosystem of world-class partners that will unleash the potential of the digital life generation by driving development and adoption of new mobile converged technologies and solutions. As part of its strategy to enable a truly connected world, the ACE partner program is an integral component in the delivery of interconnected products. ACCESS enables digital life by delivering open, extensible, and unifying platforms that partners can leverage and build on, including the ACCESS Linux Platform, a complete next-generation Linux platform for smart mobile devices.
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About Collabora
Collabora Ltd. is a Cambridge, UK based company specialising in open source development. With expertise in both real-time communications and open-source technologies including XMPP, SIP, RTP, D-Bus, GStreamer and Gtk+, it specialises in bringing companies and the open source software community together. Collabora provides clients, including Nokia and OLPC, with the knowledge, experience and infrastructure to meet their targets whilst allowing them to be an integral part of the open source community. Collabora has created a network of open source engineers from Europe and North America, and continues to expand this web further to include talented developers from around the world. More information is available at www.collabora.co.uk.

PR for Collabora
Chris Measures/Paul Allen
Rainier PR
+44 20 7494 6570
cmeasures@rainierpr.co.uk
www.rainierpr.co.uk

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