Benefon Acquires Location Content Specialist GeoSolutions, B.V.

Benefon Oyj (HEX:BNFSV) announced it has acquired GeoSolutions B.V., a developer of location-based technologies, products, and services for mobile and Internet-connected devices. The GeoSolutions technology will leverage Benefon’s GPS leadership and heritage by providing Location Based Search Technology, a Communities Platform, location relevant multimedia content and most importantly, a new and powerful commercial model. GeoSolutions co-founder and CEO Dan Harple has joined the Board of Directors of Benefon. The acquisition provides Benefon with a highly experienced senior management team having senior executive experience from companies such as Oracle, Netscape, AOL/Time Warner, and UUnet. The GeoSolutions team further provides an intriguing new technology combining GPS and Mobile-based technologies together with Internet-based social networking. The team has experience building enterprise and consumer-based software suitable for mass markets; past products built by this team were used by over 300 million people. "The GeoSolutions technology will set new standards for location services as Benefon’s reach increases by providing software that is interoperable across competitive handset manufacturers" said Peter Bamford, Chairman of Benefon, "the market opportunity is large and growing fast." Mr. Harple, a renowned technology entrepreneur founded and led two successful Internet-enabled software companies, InSoft and Context Media. Each company achieved significant shareholder value in M&A transactions with Netscape Communications Corporation, and Oracle Corporation, respectively. Sam Critchley, GeoSolutions co-founder, formerly ran the European network for the world's largest Internet provider UUnet. Mr. Critchely and Mr. Harple were brought together by former investors of UUNet and Mr. Harple's former companies. Benefon Director Brian Katzen said, "The founders of GeoSolutions have in their tenure been responsible for major Internet standards for streaming media, collaboration, and enterprise content; shipping applications used by hundreds of millions of users on the Internet. They bring that experienced skill-set to the Benefon team, a deal which we are incredibly positive about." Based in Amsterdam, GeoSolutions delivers products enabling mobile users to access traditional Internet-based content along with user generated content and local information that is aggregated from third party information sources such as directory services. Mr. Harple stated, "Amsterdam is the hub of geo-technology, globally. Our presence here will tap the deep experience base in the region, further enhancing our ability to create geo-integrated mobile applications that connect people to the places they care about.”