From: Lars Wirzenius <liw@wapit.com>
To: mjhammel@lwn.net
Subject: Kannel 1.0 press release
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 15:40:22 GMT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

8 January 2001

Kannel Open Source SMS and WAP gateway version 1.0 released

Kannel becomes part of Debian distribution

The Kannel project released version 1.0 of the world's first open source
SMS and WAP gateway. Kannel version 1.0 is now technically ready and
tested for heavy production use. The Kannel gateway is robust and scalable
with the capability of successfully handling hundreds of messages per
second. Kannel supports the most commonly used SMS center protocols,
and is already in production use at Wapit Ltd. and in many parts of the
world, both as an SMS gateway and WAP gateway.

As a tested and proven stable open source SMS and WAP gateway, Kannel
now also becomes an official part of one of the world's biggest Linux
distributions Debian GNU/Linux.  Debian has over 10 million users
worldwide and thousands of contributing developers.

Kannel is a necessary part of the wireless networking infrastructure as
it connects mobile devices to WAP servers. WAP (Wireless Application
Protocol) is used to provide services on mobile phones by enabling
mobile devices to function as simple web browsers. Kannel implements
the WAP 1.1 specification used by the current generation of WAP devices,
and works on both Unix and Windows platforms. In addition, Kannel works
as an SMS gateway, allowing service implementations to a larger segment
of mobile customers than just WAP.

"The Kannel project has now reached a milestone. Here at Wapit, we are
happy to see the open source community around Kannel growing steadily,
with the common goal of making Kannel even better," says Jouko Vierumäki,
CTO of Wapit Ltd. "Because Kannel is free, it takes away the barriers of
accessing gateway technology, so that projects of all sizes can develop
mobile applications by downloading and deploying Kannel. This opportunity
also gives universities an excellent chance to explore mobile technology,
without having to spend a lot of money on expensive gateways that are
controlled by a handful of big players."

One good example is the Institute of Medical Technology (IMT), an
independent research institute of the University of Tampere, Finland,
where Kannel is used in BioWap, IMT's biological and biomedical
information WAP service. "Kannel has proven to be a very good solution
for us, because an important factor for research material services is
that they are available free of charge", says Professor Mauno Vihinen
from University of Tampere.

"Kannel 1.0 is now ready and tested and has proven to be a very fast and
robust gateway, although it's hard to compare with commercial gateways,
since their figures are not commonly available," says Lars Wirzenius,
the head architect of Kannel. "Since the source code of Kannel is freely
available, it's easy to customize Kannel by adding completely new features
to it, in order to produce innovative services."

About the Kannel project: The Kannel project was launched in July 1999
by Wapit Ltd. to produce an Open Source gateway for SMS and WAP use. For
further information about Kannel, contact feedback@kannel.org or visit
http://www.kannel.org, where the program is downloadable for free for
everyone.

About Wapit Ltd:  Wapit Ltd. is a global leader in building a
comprehensive suite of advanced mobile middleware technology and
applications. With our modularised, easy-to-use Wapit Product Portfolio,
we offer our customers a complete toolbox to build revenue generating
mobile solutions tailored to their specific market needs. Our customers
are mobile operators, media companies and corporations, and their
Wapit mobile solutions range from a set of mobile applications to
a stand-alone mobile portal. Wapit is more than WAP. Wapit mobile
solutions are designed to be compatible with all leading technology
standards, such as SMS, WAP, GSM, i-mode, GPRS and UMTS, and all mark
up languages, such as C-HTML, HTML, WML and XML. Wapit's mission is to
shape the global mobile future by enabling provision of instant, mobile
access to the information, communication, entertainment and transaction
services that people really use. From our headquarters in Helsinki,
Finland, we are expanding with offices in Asia, the United Kingdom
and the Americas. Visit http://www.wapit.com for further information.

About Debian GNU/Linux. Debian is a free computer operating system
(OS). Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system),
but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project hence the name
GNU/Linux. Visit http://www.debian.org for further information.


For further information please contact:

The Kannel project
feedback@kannel.org

Wapit Ltd.
Thomas Lindström
Manager, Marketing and Communications
tel: +358-50-383 8620
fax: +358-9-685 53041
e-mail: thomas.lindstrom@wapit.com

Annankatu 34-36 B
FIN-00100 Helsinki
fax: +358 9 6947007
e-mail: wapit@wapit.com
www.wapit.com
www.kannel.org

-- 
Lars Wirzenius <liw@wapit.com>
Architect, Kannel WAP and SMS Gateway project, Wapit Ltd, http://www.kannel.org