Pressmart

Hyderabad, Jan 31 (UNI) After e-paper, it is the turn of newspaper on your mobile handset and all you need is GRPS-enabled handset.

Pressmart a leading ePaper technology expert and IMImobile an established end-to-end mobile VAS enabler today announced the availablity of ''mPaper''. mPaper is postioned to be the largest electronic newspaper offering on mobile in the South Asia region.

The unique collaborative technology partnership will enable news publishers an opportunity to tap the fastest growing mobile mass market of young and technology savvy subscribers, who wish to read news and access their favourite newspaper content while on the move.

mPaper opens up a new window of business opportunity for content publishers, as and news carriers to offer newspaper on a mobile screen in their original format.

To begin with, nine major operators from India and other nations will offer this service over WAP portals for their customers. The mPaper is unique it offers features like archives, search&saving news item and will be available on a monthly subscription. The New Media Delivery Platform enables a managed delivery service to publications that value the velocity and dynamism of Web 2.0 space without losing their print identity on WAP-compliant handsets.

The facility will be free for the first four weeks before moving to subscription-based for Rs 30 for a single paper to Rs 50 for a bouquet of five papers per month. The group also plans to provide mPaper in Indian languages over the next three to four months.

''Through our partnership with IMImobile, we have opened up a new business avenue for our customers to deliver their branded news content over the powerful mobile medium.'' Sanjiv Gupta, CEO, Pressmart, said ''at present, Pressmart has many leading newspapers, providing content over the internet using its ePublishing products.

By combining IMImobile's mobile data technology with Pressmart's epaper technology, we will deliver revolutionary products to our customers. Our goal is to work with IMImobile, as our strategic technology partner to deliver exciting new mPaper solutions in the future''.

The Newspaper that will be immediately available included, brands such as, Hindustan Times (Mumbai and Delhi edition), Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad and Chennai editions), DNA, Indian Express, The Asian Age, Financial Express, The New Indian Express, The Telegraph and Pioneer.

''mPaper will become an exciting new category of technology that will give people an unique newspaper reading experience from their favourite WAP enabled handsets,'' said IMImobile, CEO, A R Vishwanath, ''We're pleased to have collaborated with Pressmart for developing mPaper for mobile users. It will be a whole new way of reading news for people with a mobile lifestyle, who want their news on the move''.

The mPaper technology aggregates news from publishing partners and on-the-fly converts the test and image content to suit the variety of handset models. Pressmart and IMImobile plan to roll out other SMS, MMS and Voice-based services using the newspaper content.

For the first time, even vernacular content will be available on the mobile. Leading Indian language newspapers will be rolled out on the service soon.

UNI