PRESS RELEASE
Airborn takes off
Airborn, a newly formed company within the M-Cell group, announces its first
multi-million dollar deal with Unisys, the world's largest systems integrator.
Airborn evolved out of mobile E @ MTN, a dedicated unit exploring global
opportunities in the convergence of 450 million cellular and 250 million
Internet users.
The unit's co-creators - Sam Michel, Ari Kahn and Mike Freedman - challenged
mainstream convergence strategies by focusing on creating innovation out of
existing technologies.
Airborn is creating quantum revenue in partnership with global players by being
first movers in the wired & wireless space.
Sam Michel, Airborn's chief of e says: "we are innovating in two areas:
* Providing instant access to content on the move through enabling technologies
and
* enabling communities through instant 2 way wireless messaging"
Airborn's world-wide patent, called RIVR, enables any GSM cellphone the
quickest and simplest way to access information. A compelling aspect of RIVR is
the ability to securely unlock corporate data on the move. It demonstrates the
viability of wireless data income to an industry that is experiencing declining
voice-revenues.
Continues Michel: "We identified Unisys as the ideal partner in deploying RIVR
services around the world. Unisys currently has presence in over 150 countries
and has existing infrastructure to roll out RIVR services in over 50% of the
worlds telcos."
Ian Milne, Area Sales Director, Telecomms at Unisys Africa says, "Unisys'
strategic intent is to partner world-wide with innovative companies which add
value to our customer base. RIVR has been productised in our labs in New
Zealand, it builds on our strength in the Telecomms market and we anticipate
significant revenues for Telco operators globally, who will offer RIVR services
to their mobile clients."
He added that, "Unisys views the partnership with Airborn as the first stepping
stone in a long and mutually beneficial relationship for the provision of
content based services to the mobile commerce market."
Ross Macdonald, CEO of Airborn says; "we will receive revenue from two streams
- a direct licensing fee for the use of the technology; and royalties on all
call revenue generated which will be shared with Unisys. It is anticipated that
the deal will generate revenues in the order of many hundreds of millions of
Rands over the next few years."
Michel continues, "our second area of innovation is to enable the growth of
global communities. As proof of concept we created mtnsms.com, now the largest
site out of Africa. It is ranked in the top 50 most popular sites in the world
serving over 100 million page impressions per month."
Irene Charnley, chairperson of M-Cell says that, "the group is very excited to
be part of a global mobile Internet initiative out of Africa. The deal with
Unisys is just the beginning. Airborn is living up to the promise of quantum
wealth."