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RealNetworks to Showcase Mobile Entertainment-as-a-Service at Mobile World Congress Barcelona

Highlights offerings and partnerships that enable mobile operators to move into the era of mobile personalisation

February 11, 2008—Barcelona, Spain—This week at Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona, RealNetworks®, Inc., the digital entertainment services company, will highlight its mobile entertainment offerings that allow mobile operators to bring subscribers into the era of mobile personalisation by providing the music, games and video that subscribers want in order to individualise their mobile experiences.

Real’s CEO, Rob Glaser, will outline the company’s Entertainment as a Service strategy at Billboard and Hollywood Reporter’s “Mobile Backstage” conference (Wednesday, February 13th at 4:45 p.m.), focusing on the ways mobile operators can increase ARPU by offering mobile entertainment services to subscribers.

Real announced that it has renewed its Music-on-Demand contract with SK Telecom for the acclaimed MelOn service. In addition the company is launching touch-screen support for mobile games—including for its upcoming game Little Shop of Treasures which will be one of the first hidden object games on the mobile platform— and is highlighting a unique alliance with Honda which will sponsor a critically-acclaimed game.  In addition, Real will preview the Q2 release of Helix Mobile Server v12.

SK Telecom MelOn Renews Contract
Demonstrating the popularity and success of Real’s services for mobile operators, Real announced the extension of its contract with leading Korean wireless services provider, SK Telecom, to continue powering its acclaimed MelOn Service, offering SKT subscribers with the music that they want, when they want it. 

Since November 2004, through its acquisition of WiderThan, Real has powered the world’s first ubiquitous digital music service, SK Telecom’s MelOn.  MelOn was the first integrated online and wireless subscription music service, allowing users to enjoy their music whenever and wherever they choose by streaming to a PC or downloading tracks to a mobile phone or portable music device.  With the extension of this partnership, Real will continue to deliver premium digital music services to SK Telecom’s subscribers – the largest number of digital mobile music subscribers in Korea.
 
Touch Screen Support for Mobile Games
The global leader in PC-based casual games, Real is known for its innovative mobile game titles and technology.  With an extensive catalog of award-winning titles, Real has announced today that more than a dozen mobile games are now optimized for phones featuring touch screens. Strategy Analytics forecasts that nearly 30 percent of phones will feature touch screens by 2010.

In April, RealArcade Mobile will release Little Shop of Treasures, a hidden object game based on a top-5 most-downloaded game in Real’s games network.  Launched in 2007, the franchise has already spawned two sequels and boasts nearly five million downloads to-date globally.  Little Shop will be the industry’s first hidden object game available for the mobile phone platform with support for more than 800 handsets.

RealArcade Mobile Partners With Honda
In an effort to introduce its popular Playman mobile game character to an expanded audience, Real’s mobile games division and Honda are creating a unique opportunity to make one of Real’s most critically acclaimed mobile games, Playman Extreme Running, available free of charge with embedded ads promoting one of Honda’s vehicles, the Honda Fit. 
 
Game players can download and play six levels of Extreme Running—which won Sony Ericsson’s first-ever Content Awards late last year and was given Pocket Gamer’s Gold Award—in exchange for watching brief Honda Fit advertisements before and during natural breaks in play of the game. In addition, as players virtually run, somersault and jump through the city streets of the game, they will pass billboard ads for the Honda Fit.  

Announcing Helix Mobile Server v12
Real, with its long heritage in streaming video, also announced that the next generation of Helix Mobile Server, currently in Beta with leading European mobile carriers, will be available broadly in Q2 2008, including new features and performance enhancements that will help operators drive adoption of video on mobile devices.  Topping the list of new features is Fast Channel Switching and improvements to Rate Adaptation for on-demand mobile content. 

Fast Channel Switching will bring a more “TV like” viewing experience to subscribers as they change between mobile video “channels, ” reducing switch time from 10-15 seconds to just 3-5 seconds, eliminating dead time between videos.   Rate Adaptation improvements for on-demand content will improve overall end-user quality of service, particularly with fluctuating networks.  The feature automatically delivers the highest bit-rate stream that can be supported by the network at any given time.
 
The high quality video delivery of Helix Mobile Server enables mobile operators worldwide to provide customers with the new video services they desire.    Helix Mobile Server continues to support open standards and multiple media data types, with broad playback reach to over 175 million handsets worldwide.

RealNetworks will feature its full range of services--currently available through 89 mobile carriers in 44 countries worldwide—and products marketed to mobile operators to help them create additional revenue and value from their subscribers.  Real offers a comprehensive selection of mobile services including Music on Demand, Games, Video, Personalisation features (such as Ringtones, RBTs and Multimedia Ringback Services) as well as messaging services. The company also offers packaged software products for mobile operators who want to manage and deploy their own solutions.

See Rob Glaser speak at GSMA’s Mobile Backstage (brought to you by Billboard and Hollywood Reporter), Palau Nacional, Wednesday February 13, 2008 at 4:45 p.m.
Find RealNetworks at Mobile World Congress at Hospitality Suite 19 & 25
Hall 4, Level 0

ABOUT REALNETWORKS
RealNetworks, Inc. delivers digital entertainment services to consumers via PC, portable music player, home entertainment system or mobile phone.  Real created the streaming media category in 1995 and has continued to lead the market with pioneering products and services, including:  RealPlayer®, the first mainstream media player to enable one-click downloading and recording of Internet video; the award-winning Rhapsody® digital music service, which delivers more than 1 billion songs per year; RealArcade®, one of the largest casual games destinations on the Web; and a variety of mobile entertainment services, such as ringback tones, offered to consumers through leading wireless carriers around the world.  RealNetworks' corporate information is located at www.realnetworks.com/company.

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RealNetworks, RealArcade, Rhapsody, RealPlayer and the Real logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of RealNetworks, Inc. or its subsidiaries.  All other trademarks, names of actual companies and products mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.