Sling Media, Inc., a digital lifestyle consumerelectronics products company and Symbian Limited, the market-leader in openoperating systems for smartphones, today announced that the two companies arepartnering to bring consumers a powerful mobile TV experience to Symbiansmartphones.
Sling Media will deliver aversion of its popular SlingPlayer Mobile software application, currentlyavailable only in the U.S.and Canada, for Symbian OSin select European and Asian countries during Q4 and will extend availabilityto the U.S.shortly thereafter. Unlike other offerings available on the market today,SlingPlayer Mobile delivers customers’ complete home TV experience on mobilehandsets using standard network connections, including 3G cellular and WiFi.
The new SlingPlayer Mobile for Symbian OS software packagewill enable users to transform their supported Symbian smartphones on S60 andUIQ into personal, on-the-go digital TVs providing anytime, anywhere access totheir living room television experience. Any program that can be watched athome will be viewable through a Slingbox on supported Symbian smartphones using3G or WiFi, including support for terrestrial TV, Freeview, cable, andsatellite TV. In addition, SlingPlayer Mobile lets users control their homepersonal video recorder (PVR) to watch recorded shows, pause, and rewind liveTV or even queue new recordings while away from home.
“Symbian’s market leading position drove our decision towork with them and deliver the Slingbox experience to a large mobile customerbase,” said Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media. "Peoplelove their living room TV programming and simply want the ability to watch iton any device wherever they happen to be, whether at work on their PC, aroundthe home on their wireless laptop, or on the go via their mobile phone. I'vebeen using a beta version of the SlingPlayer Mobile on a Symbian smartphone,and it's pure sweetness."
Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world’s leading handset manufacturers. To date, over82 million Symbian smartphones have been sold worldwide to over 250 majornetwork operators. According to Gartner, Symbian accounted for about 71 percentof worldwide smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2006.
“Symbian works collaboratively with its licensees andpartners to foster innovation and set trends for new smartphone features andcapabilities, thereby expanding the market for 3G-based multimedia applications,”said Jerry Panagrossi, vice president, US operations, Symbian. “SlingPlayer Mobile is a breakthrough in mobileTV viewing that captures the essence of the new smartphone lifestyle, representinga new level of interaction with the world and immediacy for information andentertainment.”
The combined mobile TV experience is driven by Sling Media’s breakthrough product, the Slingbox.The Slingbox redirects, or “placeshifts,” a single live TV stream from astandard or Freeview cable connection, cable box, satellite receiver or PVR tothe viewer’s 3G handset or PC located anywhere in the home or anywhere in theworld.
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