RealNetworks Announces 3G Mobile Enterprise to Promote Wireless Streaming

RealNetworks unveiled its next generation Helix Server for mobile enterprises. The Helix Server Unlimited is Real's enterprise solution for delivering a cost effective, flexible, high quality streaming experience to wired, and now, wireless devices.

The new version supports 3GPP technology, enabling enterprise customers to stream mobile content to a wide variety of handsets and other wireless devices.

"Real has built a strong foundation of delivering innovative mobile technology and services, and we're very excited to be extending our advanced mobile capability to our enterprise customers," said John Giamatteo, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Business Products and International Operations for RealNetworks. "The latest version of the Helix server delivers a high quality, rich mobile streaming experience for our partners to stay on the cutting edge of the converging multimedia market."

The Helix Server Unlimited is the only multi-format, cross platform enterprise streaming server on the market to deliver RealAudio(r), RealVideo(r), Windows Media, QuickTime, Mpeg-4 and 3GPP from a single server infrastructure. The server fits within existing operating system environments and supports Windows, Solaris, Linux and Unix-based operating systems for streaming. New features include support for SNMP v3 and next generation protocols such as IP v6, as well as improved firewall support and Helix Rate Adaptation for better use of network resources.

Mobile Streaming Customers
The mobile application is currently being used by several of Real's enterprise customers, including University College London (UCL) and the City of Seattle. University College London is currently exploring opportunities that give them the flexibility to make educational content accessible to students wherever and whenever they need it

"The Multimedia Unit within UCL is actively involved in the investigation of new technologies, in particular where these technologies add value to the Institute's core objectives in relation to teaching and learning and research," said John Conway, Head of Multimedia, UCL. "With Helix Servers, UCL has the ability to deliver content in a variety of ways to a variety of platforms; the potential
value to the UCL community cannot be underestimated."

The City of Seattle has been streaming its television programming to the desktop for over 8 years and is now expanding it to the handset. "The mobile component is another great value-add service for our residents," said Nate Eckstine, City of Seattle Department of Information Technology. "Our citizens used to have to catch our council meetings, arts and public affairs programming on TV or order a tape before we made it available on demand on the PC, but now with the enhancements to Real's server they can watch from their local coffee house or anywhere else."