Latest Philips Wireless Handset Ships With T9 Text Input in China

Business Wire, Nov 9, 1999

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 9, 1999--

PT/Wireless Comm Beijing (Booth 5E07)

--Philips Xenium 939 Enables Easy Wireless Text Messaging With

Chinese And English Text Input Software From Tegic Communications--

Tegic Communications today announced Philips is shipping it's newest wireless handset, the Xenium 939, with the Chinese (Simplified, Traditional, Stroke and Pinyin methods) and English language databases of T9 Text Input software.

The new handset is available now for GSM networks in China and Hong Kong. T9 Text Input enables the use of advanced wireless communication services such as Short Messaging Service (SMS), Internet access and email by allowing wireless phone users to quickly and easily enter text and characters into their wireless phone.

"We are pleased to continue our long-standing relationship with Philips by helping them extend the benefits of T9 Text Input to handsets for the growing Chinese market," said Connie, vice president of business development for Asia Pacific for Tegic Communications. "With T9 Text Input users of the Philips Xenium 939 have the industry's quickest and most efficient method for entering data into a wireless phone."

About the Philips Xenium 939

The Philips Xenium 939 features an impressive combination of style, technology and ergonomics. In addition to T9 Text Input, other outstanding features include a unique menu navigation system and voice command capability, all packed in an ultra-small, ultra-lightweight design.

About T9 Text Input

By incorporating T9 Text Input into mobile communications products, companies are solving the fundamental problem of how to quickly and easily type messages. T9 Text Input replaces conventional "multi-tap" text entry, allowing users to compose text messages with only one key press per letter.

Each key on a telephone keypad has more than one letter -- a single press on the "5" key could be "J," "K," or "L." T9 Text Input automatically compares users' key presses to an internal linguistic database to determine the correct word. For the Chinese language, T9 Text Input supports both, Simplified and Traditional stroke-based Chinese characters, as well as phonetic Pinyin and BoPoMoFo text input. To input characters, T9 Text Input selects characters from the linguistic database that match the user's strokes and stroke order. Phonetic Pinyin text entry utilizes the standard letters of the Roman alphabet while BoPoMoFo phonetic text entry utilizes a special Taiwanese alphabet.

Tegic's research efforts have resulted in a Chinese stroke-based input system that allows individuals to identify the desired character after only 1.8 strokes on average, and then select it with one more keystroke. With T9 Text Input, it takes less than three keystrokes on average to input a character.

In addition to Chinese and English, T9 Text Input is available in a variety of languages including Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean (Hangul), Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. Work is also underway toward the completion of versions of T9 Text Input software for Eastern European and Middle Eastern languages.

About Philips Consumer Communications

Philips Consumer Communications (PCC) is a business group of Philips Consumer Electronics, a division of Royal Philips Electronics. PCC is headquartered in Paris, and designs, manufactures and markets a complete range of personal communication products including digital and analog cellular and cordless phones, corded phones and answering machines. For more information, visit the company's Web site: http://www.pcc.philips.com.

About Tegic Communications

Seattle-based Tegic Communications was founded in 1995 to develop and market communication technologies for the telecommunications and computing industries. The company has offices in Seattle, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Tegic's line of products currently include T9 Text Input, the leading Chinese and Japanese character-based text input software and alphabet-based and, and a recently announced wireless instant messaging application. T9 Text Input technology has been licensed to major consumer electronics and communications equipment manufacturers representing more than 90 percent of annual wireless phone production worldwide.

In addition to Philips, current licensees include Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Benefon, Bosch, Fujitsu, LG Information & Communications, Maxon, Memory Corporation, Mitsubishi, NEC, NeoPoint, Optimay, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Sagem, Samsung, Siemens, Sony and Texas Instruments. The company has worldwide patents, both issued and pending, on T9 Text Input technology.

For more information about Tegic Communications or T9 Text Input, call 206/343-7001, send e-mail to info@tegic.com, or visit the Company's Web site at www.tegic.com.

Tegic is a trademark and T9 is a registered trademark of Tegic Communications. All other trademarks or registered trademarks belong to their respective holders.