Synchronica plc : Synchronica Signs Breakthrough Contract with Sun Microsystems

Business Wire, August 20, 2007

Agreement with Sun to license key components of Synchronica's Mobile Gateway marks the beginning of a long-term relationship

ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS, England -- Synchronica plc (AIM: SYNC.LN), the mobile synchronisation and device management company, is pleased to announce that it has signed a contract with Sun Microsystems, Inc (NASDAQ: SUNW), the leading global supplier of network computing solutions, servers, storage, software and services, to licence key components of the Synchronica Mobile Gateway for integration with products from its Communications and Applications software divisions.

This contract is a breakthrough for the Company and marks the successful conclusion of the negotiations, announced previously, with a major hardware manufacturer.

Sun will pay an initial licence fee of US $1.8m for the first major version upon Sun's acceptance of the software. Sun can buy additional licences on a per-user basis at a price of up to $2.40 per user per annum. The contract offers Sun the option to consolidate the licences into a one-off fee of up to $4.6m per major version. In addition, Synchronica has signed a support contract with Sun covered by a base fee of up to $150,000 annually, plus a fee of up to $4,500 per support incident.

Sun plans to use Synchronica Mobile Gateway's core SyncML technology to enable over-the-air synchronisation of the Sun Java(TM) Communications Suite with any mobile device supporting SyncML, the dominant industry standard incorporated into more than 1.3 billion devices from leading manufacturers including Nokia, SonyEricsson and Motorola. The Sun Java(TM) Communications Suite occupies a strong niche in the communication and collaboration market, providing services for major global enterprises and mobile operators, and is reported to power more than 240 million mailboxes worldwide.

Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica, said: "This deal marks the beginning of a long term, strategic relationship with Sun and is a major milestone in Synchronica's development. Sun is a key driver of the global software industry and, in particular, in the telecommunications and enterprise software markets. Integrating Synchronica's SyncML technology with Sun's core software products will create a scalable route to market and broaden the adoption of our software in the marketplace."

Synchronica's agreement with Sun is focused on SyncML synchronisation and does not include the mobile email module of Mobile Gateway preserving the potential for further business with Sun and its customers. Synchronica is already in contact with several mobile operators interested in licensing the mobile email module of Mobile Gateway for use with the Sun Java(TM) Communications Suite.

This deal follows on closely from the announcement in July for Synchronica to licence a core component of its Mobile Manager Suite to SmartTrust AB, a leader in Mobile Device Management solutions, for a fee of EUR 800,000 and engineering resource providing additional revenues of up to EUR 200,000 per year.

Notes to editors

The Communications division of Sun plans to use the SyncML synchronisation engine of Synchronica's Mobile Gateway with the Sun Java(TM) Communications Suite enabling users to synchronise calendar, contacts, and tasks over-the-air, with a wide variety of mobile devices compatible via the SyncML (OMA DS) industry standard. Synchronica will also provide SyncML synchronisation clients for Palm OS and Windows Mobile Smartphones, as well as a client provisioning module using the industry standard OMA CP (Client Provisioning), providing over-the-air configuration of mobile devices.

The Applications division of Sun has road-mapped to use Synchronica's SyncML synchronisation engine and Java ME (Mobile Edition) SyncML client to enhance the Sun Java(TM) Application Platform Suite with an end-to-end synchronisation infrastructure, enabling third party developers to build arbitrary data synchronisation solutions. Using the Synchronica technology, Sun will enable its customers to build customised synchronisation solutions that can, for example, include over-the-air synchronisation of ERP or CRM data to the Smartphones carried by sales or support personnel.

About Synchronica

Synchronica plc develops and markets industry standard synchronisation and device management solutions for mobile operators, device manufacturers, and enterprises. Its product portfolio ranges from data synchronization (DS) to device management (DM) and firmware update over the air (FOTA). Products include the mobile device management suite Mobile Manager and the Push Email and synchronization solution Mobile Gateway. Headquartered in the UK with a development centre in Germany, and offices in Hong Kong and Dubai Synchronica plc is a public company traded on the AIM list of the London Stock Exchange (SYNC.LN). More information is available at www.synchronica.com.

About Synchronica Mobile Gateway

Synchronica's Mobile Gateway is a carrier-grade middleware solution providing push e-mail and synchronisation services. Based on the open industry standards SyncML and IMAP, Mobile Gateway is compatible with a wide range of mobile devices from leading device manufacturers, such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and Apple, without requiring additional client software to be installed on the device or behind the firewall. Today more than 400 device models and 1.3 billion devices support the industry standard.