[Nokia and Sun Microsystems announce upcoming release of SNAP Mobile, an online multiplayer gaming solution for Java games.]

San Jose -- The SNAP Mobile solution will bring Nokia's advanced mobile online multiplayer and community technology to a broad range of mobile handsets using Sun's widely adopted Java language. SNAP Mobile is expected to be available as part of a tools environment based on Sun's Wireless Toolkit in the third quarter of 2004.

With this solution, game developers can easily create Java games with a mobile online multiplayer gaming component that will allow consumers to play online connected games with other people around the world. Network operators can now rapidly and cost-effectively deploy a mobile online gaming community for their Java game subscribers, helping to drive additional data revenue from online gaming sessions.

"Nokia sees that mobile online multiplayer games and mobility go hand in hand, which is why we want to work with Sun to complement our N-Gage offering and expand the mobile online multiplayer experience to the wider Java gaming market," said Ilkka Raiskinen, Nokia's Senior Vice President, Games Business Unit. "SNAP Mobile aims to provide the tools for developers to easily create mobile online multiplayer games and a straight forward way for network operators to launch mobile online gaming communities."

"As the market for Java-based services in the mobile market matures, the level of sophistication for services has increased tremendously," said Chris Mellisinos, chief gaming officer for Sun Microsystems. "Bringing mobile games online is one of the most important steps the industry needs to take. Java has proven itself to be the right technology for building a better user experience to mobile games; this effort now takes our joint customers' experience to yet a higher level."

SNAP Mobile is based on Nokia's Scalable Network Application Package (SNAP) middleware technology and Sun's widely adopted Java language for mobile devices. The SNAP Mobile middleware will be made available on the Sun Solaris operating environment to provide the high availability and performance required for multi-player sessions. As a proven and tested middleware technology utilized in the N-Gage Arena to enable mobile online multiplayer gaming, SNAP enables a cross-platform approach to mobile multiplayer gaming.

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