Newsbits


Lucent Technologies' Inferno Venture Forms Strategic Alliance With InfoSpace.com


07:59 a.m. Nov 17, 1998 Eastern

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 1998--

Inferno-Embedded Information Appliances with Customized Web Content

Featured at Comdex

Lucent Technologies today announced that one of its business ventures, Inferno, has signed a strategic marketing agreement with InfoSpace.com, a leading provider of Internet content services.

The agreement allows the companies to cooperate in the development, marketing, and promotion of Inferno's Internet appliance solutions. The companies will also pursue future business opportunities based on each other's existing technologies.

"We believe information appliances are the wave of the future," said Naveen Jain, President and CEO of InfoSpace.com. "Adding InfoSpace's directories and services to these appliances is a natural fit, providing consumers with easy access to useful information."

Under terms of the agreement, InfoSpace services will be marketed and sold as part of Inferno's turnkey Information Appliance Suite. This means a manufacturer will be able to create an Inferno-embe dded appliance that offers consumers and businesses access to a broad variety of InfoSpace content services, including yellow pages, white pages, maps, real-time stock quotes, neighborhood city guides, and classified advertising.

InfoSpace's proprietary technology allows for its content services to be customized to fit the needs of virtually any vertical market - such as banking, healthcare, and hospitality and optimized for delivery through practically any type of information appliance or alternative access device, including screen phones, wireless handsets or set-top boxes.

The Philips IS2630 screen phone with Internet access, an Inferno-embedded information appliance, already incorporates InfoSpace Content Services. The phone was the focus of a presentation given yesterday afternoon by Inferno Director of Sales, Sam Paone, at the Venture Forum here at Comdex.

The IS2630 features an Inferno-enabled web browser. Inferno's compact browser has an exceptionally small footprint (240K, uncompressed). According to Inferno's Chief Technical Officer, Jim Frasca, it is among the fastest browsers available in today's embedded systems environment. "The new browser makes it easier and faster for IS2630 users to surf InfoSpace content," said Frasca. About Inferno

Inferno is the first business venture created by Lucent Technologies, Inc, and the name of the venture's real-time operating system. In addition to serving the needs of the telecommunications market, Inferno's mission is to provide simple access to information services through non-PC Internet appliances. Inferno envisions that Internet appliances will be used for retrieving information quickly -- such as phone numbers, stock quotes, news -- as opposed to leisurely PC browsing. The InfoSpace relationship builds on this vision by providing access to real-time information services coupled with localized content. For more information on Inferno, visit http://www.lucent.com/inferno. About InfoSpace.com

InfoSpace.com is a leading aggregator and integrator of content services that it syndicates to a broad network of affiliates, including existing and emerging Internet portals, destination sites and suppliers of PCs and other Internet access devices, such as cellular phones, pagers, screen phones, television set-top boxes, online kiosks and personal digital assistants. The Company focuses on content with broad appeal, such as yellow pages and white pages, maps, classified advertisements, real-time stock quotes, information on local businesses and events, weather forecasts and horoscopes. By aggregating content from multiple sources and integrating it with related content to increase its usefulness, the Company serves as a single source of value-added content.

InfoSpace.com Internet affiliates include AOL (NYSE:AOL), Netscape (Nasdaq:NSCP) Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), Lycos (Nasdaq:LCOS), go2net Inc.'s MetaCrawler (Nasdaq:GNET), Playboy (NYSE:PLA), Dow Jones (The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition), ABC LocalNet (NYSE:DIS) and CBS's affiliated TV stations (NYSE:CBS).

In addition, the Company has development agreements with a number of providers of Internet access devices including PCs by Acer America, Gateway 2000 and Pixel (for Packard Bell NEC), cellular phones by AT&T Wireless (NYSE:T) and UnWired Planet, pagers by SkyTel and WolfeTech (for Motorola), screen phones by Infogear, Mitel, Mitsui and Lucent, television set-top boxes by American Interactive Media, @Home, @World, Lucent, On Command, Planetweb and Source Media, online kiosks by King kiosk platform and Lexitech kiosk platform, and personal digital assistants by AT&T Wireless, InfoGear, NovaTel and UnWired Planet. About Lucent Technologies

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronic components. Bell Labs is the research and development arm for the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit http://www.lucent.com/


Copyright 1998, Business Wire



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