Acotel acquires 100 percent stake in Info2cell.com

Acotel, which provides personalized, wireless value-added services to more than 35 million subscribers through partnerships with leading wireless network operations in Europe and Latin America, is now set to take on the highly lucrative market for mobile messaging services and related offerings in the Middle East.

"Acotel has been at the forefront of the wireless messaging revolution since 1992 and has acquired industry leading expertise that is reflected in the innovative products it has launched over the past few years," said Claudio Carnevale, CEO and Chairman of Acotel Group. "We have noted with increasing interest, the exponential growth in mobile communications in the Middle East and have been toying with the idea of entering this market on a large scale. The vibrant energy displayed by Info2cell.com in introducing messaging products to mobile phone users in the region and the company's speedy growth encouraged us to believe that Info2cell.com is the right platform from which Acotel can target the growing list of mobile subscribers in the Middle East," he added.

"The Middle East market carries a huge potential for the development of messaging services in view of the dramatic increase in the number of mobile phones and buoyant projections for future growth. We are delighted to enter the market at a time when the convergence between the PC and the mobile phone has triggered a new generation of services including Jinny Instant Messaging (JIM), which has been developed by Acotel to support SMS, MMS and EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service). JIM allows subscribers with mobile phones (both GSM and GPRS) to connect to the JIM platform using SMS, WAP, J2ME or through a PDA or PC," said Carnevale.

"Acotel is fully committed to the Middle East and this will be reflected in the investments we are making for the development of additional content and applications to be hosted and offered to Info2cell.com operator partners. This region forms an integral part of our global operations and we are committed to transfer the expertise we have developed and acquired in our operations in Italy, Northern Europe and South America," said Carnevale as he expressed his optimism at the growing importance of Dubai as the communications and media hub of the region and lauded the world-class infrastructure established at Dubai Internet City.

Acotel's decision to enter the Middle East market for mobile messaging has been a cautious one spread out over two years since 2000 when the European giant first acquired a 33 per cent stake in Info2cell.com.

In a statement to mark the occasion, Dr. Fawaz H. Al Zu'bi, Jordan's Minister of Information and Communications Technology, said: "Info2cell.com represents a role model for Middle East IT companies and a perfect example of leveraging the synergies of two of the region's most dynamic IT-driven economies. Info2cell.com has used Jordan as the back office development center for content management systems that form the backbone of Info2cell services and as the editorial hub with a highly sophisticated newsroom and information-gathering center. Dubai has provided the much needed, world-class infrastructure and a base for directing operations and marketing activities. With a global company like Acotel now joining hands with Info2cell.com, there will certainly be a positive impact on the running the company and its range of services, bringing new technology and expertise to the region."

"We are pleased to welcome Acotel, the leading European company into our family of international partners and we hope that this association will be an extension of the excellent relationship that we already have with Info2cell.com," said Dr. Omar bin Sulaiman, CEO of Dubai Internet City. "Acotel's strong entry into the region sends the right signal to the world that the Middle East region is ripe for hi-tech communications technology. It also consolidates the stature of Dubai Internet City as the base of operations for the one of the most innovative and forward looking IT companies in the world. We welcome companies like Acotel because they bring technology investments that will raise the standards of communication services in the region. We have no doubt that the full support of Acotel to the Info2cell.com operations will infuse a new dynamism in messaging services and bring them on par with the best in the world."

Bashar Dahabra, Founder and CEO of Info2cell.com, said that the success of Info2cell.com was the result of the fruitful collaboration between the facilities in Jordan and the UAE. "The IT strategies, driven by top political leadership in both countries, have boosted the entrepreneurial spirit in the public sector and Info2cell is proud to have gained the support of these far-sighted leaders," said Dahabra. "We feel proud that Acotel, one of the biggest wireless application service providers in the world, has realised the potential of Info2cell.com and is now making further investments to power its future growth. This certainly augurs well for the development of the region's wireless information services."

"With Acotel's financial, technological and managerial support, Info2cell.com is poised to enter a new era, drawing on its already creditable achievements. Within a short time, Info2cell.com has succeeded in acquiring a subscriber base of 100,000 in the six countries where it has partnered with local GSM operators," said Dahabra. "This is a significant achievement and our projections are that we will reach 250,000 registered subscribers by the end of 2003, and then doubling to 500,000 by the end of 2004."

"Info2cell.com, which operates through a development center in Jordan and headquarters in Dubai Internet City, has been one of the first successful wireless information providers in the region, driven by the combined visions of His Majesty King Abdulla of Jordan and HH General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defence Minister. It has become an ideal model of a concept successfully incubated and developed within the Middle East, leveraging the expertise of Jordan's systems and software development hub, the state-of-the-art infrastructure available at Dubai Internet City and the logistical advantage of Dubai's geographic location," he added.

Carnevale announced that as a first concrete move following the full acquisition of the company, Acotel had linked the Info2cell.com development centre in Jordan to its development centers in Beirut and Rome, heralding the availability of more sophisticated services.

Acotel, a publicly listed company on the new Milan Stock Exchange, is a multi-media service integrator based in Rome. The company was founded in 1992 by a team of software innovators with a background in encryption and advanced electronic security systems. In the new multimedia chain, Acotel is strongly positioned as a content aggregator, packager, value-added service provider and manufacturer of Mobile Services Platform and Mobile Network Infrastructure. In 2001, Acotel acquired a 100 per cent stake in Jinny Software, one of the leading providers of telecom infrastructures, offering SMSC, WAP Gateways, MMSC, VoiceXMI Servers, Cell Broadcast Servers, Message Gateways, Multimedia Servers.