MIDAS Research Project Turns Mobile Middleware into Gold

Stockholm, January 18, 2006 – Appear Networks announced today that the MIDAS (Middleware Platform for Developing and Deploying Advanced Mobile Services) Consortium had been ranked first out of 99 project proposals and granted EU financing to start research on the next generation of middleware for wireless networks. The MIDAS Consortium is composed of the SINTEF Research Institute (Norway), Appear Networks (Sweden), Telefonica (Spain), Capgemini BV (the Netherlands), Paris Local Transport Authority (France), 51Pegasi (France), the University of Oslo and the Warsaw University of Technology.

The Consortium aims to focus on challenging deployment environments, such as distributing mobile information to visitors and employees of large-scale sports events or providing real-time safety information to emergency response teams in a public transport network.

Imagine a security agent sending a silent alert by simply pressing a button on his wireless device. Instantly, the alert is geo-localized and real-time video streams from the local surveillance cameras are pushed onto the mobile terminals of the nearby security agents. This state of alert also triggers an automatic self-configuration of the network, which sets new priority rules for bandwidth management, providing optimal quality of service for the security crew. Moreover, punctual “field ops” applications are instantly pushed to the security crew to support them during the intervention; for example, a simple click on his terminal will automatically connect a security agent to his closest colleague via voice over IP (VoIP).

Part of the fourth call of the IST Sixth Framework Program and starting in January 2006, MIDAS is a €4.9 million project focusing on “Mobile and Wireless Systems beyond 3G” and will provide an unprecedented platform for the design, development and deployment of mobile applications.

Joe Gorman, project coordinator at SINTEF, said: “Traditional approaches to mobile service creation involve a great deal of reinvention for each new service, and there are no standard approaches to key issues such as the need to combine infrastructure-based and infrastructure-free communications. Even short-lived mobile services generally require considerable customization, which makes the provision of such services technically and economically infeasible. MIDAS will make it possible to provide new and innovative mobile services to large groups of people, in locations and situations where previously this would have been impossible.”

The MIDAS platform will make it commercially viable for the wider IT industry to provide mobile services in environments with a very large number of users over a limited period of time (for example, an international sport event such as the Football World Cup) or in situations where the service must be set up immediately (for example, teams responding to an emergency in a underground transportation network). The platform’s technical architecture and middleware building blocks will provide solutions to the numerous technical issues involved in developing mobile services, such as gathering, transforming and distributing context information in a suitable form.

“We are thrilled to have been selected amongst such tough competition,” commented Xavier Aubry, COO, Appear Networks. “The mobile middleware industry is undergoing profound changes driven by operators and large enterprises that seek to deploy value-added mobile services. Next-generation mobile middleware platforms should enable the rapid development of new services. With MIDAS, we will cut the development time of services from months to weeks.”

The MIDAS approach will benefit users in various ways, including making it easier for companies to develop new mobile services with reduced risks and lower investment levels. In turn, this will lead to an increase in the number of services developed and their level of functionality.

About Appear Networks: Appear Networks is a leading provider of wireless communication platforms that enable successful enterprise mobility solutions. The Appear IQ suite of products transforms standard wireless data networks into multimedia channels for the proactive delivery of personalized, real-time information, mission-critical video and VoIP communication to mobile workers. In highly demanding, mobile environments, Appear IQ makes technology accessible and intuitive, leveraging existing IT investments to maximize employee productivity and the effectiveness of customer interactions. Appear IQ is used by leaders in the transportation, telecommunication and public sector, including, among others, Stockholm Subway (SL), Paris Local Transport Authority (RATP), Connex, France Telecom and the City of Kista, Sweden. Appear Networks partners with IT industry leaders Cisco, Capgemini, Intel and Fujitsu Siemens Computers to deliver innovative, end-to-end, integrated WLAN solutions. The company is privately held and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. For more information, please visit us at http://www.appearnetworks.com.

About MIDAS: The MIDAS Consortium includes SINTEF, a leading European research institute and project coordinator; Capgemini, a global system integrator; Telefonica, one of the world’s largest telecom operators; RATP, the Paris public transport authority; Appear Networks, a mobile middleware specialist; 51pegasi, an IT solution provider specialized in sports events; University of Oslo; and Warsaw University of Technology.

Press Contacts: Mia Falgard, +46 8 545 91 370, mia.falgard@appearnetworks.com