Napster Contact:
Dana M. Harris / Becky Farina
Napster
310-281-5000
dana.harris@napster.com /
becky.farina@napster.com
NAPSTER MOBILE TO MAKE EUROPEAN DEBUT ON O2 IRELAND
Los Angeles, Calif. - December 12, 2006 - Napster (Nasdaq: NAPS), the digital music pioneer,
today announced that Napster Mobile will celebrate its first European launch later this month when
it debuts on Telefonica's O2 mobile network in Ireland. Hosted by Ericsson and featuring Napster's
massive catalog of over three million full-length songs, artist images and ring tones, Napster Mobile
will be available to O2 Ireland's 1.6 million subscribers through NTT DoCoMo's i-Mode, a mobile internet
service platform currently used by over 46 million mobile subscribers across Europe and Asia.
O2 Ireland joins a rapidly-growing roster of top-tier wireless carriers, including Cingular in the U.S.
and DoCoMo in Japan, who have chosen to promote Napster Mobile's comprehensive mobile music experience
to their subscribers. This launch also marks the addition of Europe to Napster Mobile's list of leading
mobile markets in which it currently operates.
"The European launch of Napster Mobile on O2 Ireland is a significant achievement for Napster, as it
will mark the introduction of a comprehensive Napster mobile experience in a country where Napster does
not currently offer a PC-based service," said Brad Duea, Napster's president. "We're very pleased to be
partnering with O2 on the European launch of Napster Mobile, and are excited to give music fans in Ireland
the ability to enjoy the Napster music experience."
Through Napster Mobile, O2 Ireland customers will be able to search, browse, preview and purchase full-length
songs from the world's largest mobile music catalog and to enjoy Ericsson-aggregated personalization content
via their i-mode wireless handsets. Beginning early next year, customers will also be able to enjoy these
features through wap- and java-enabled handsets. The Napster Mobile handset application, which will be
pre-loaded on select i-Mode handsets from O2, gives customers access to Napster programming, including featured
artists and top tracks of the day, and contains a recommendation engine which makes content recommendations
based upon each user's personal musical taste. In February of next year, O2's Napster Mobile service will begin
featuring dual-delivery functionality, meaning all content purchased through Napster Mobile will be simultaneously
delivered to both the customer's handset and to their PC.
The launch of Napster Mobile on O2 Ireland comes on the heels of last month's announcement that Napster and
Ericsson have entered into an agreement with Portuguese operator TMN to launch Napster Mobile on that network,
Portugal's largest, with over five million mobile subscribers.
Napster Mobile is based on an Ericsson service delivery platform tailored for media delivery. Ericsson will
host, integrate and manage the round-the-clock-operations of the service for O2 under a managed service
agreement. The agreement also includes content aggregation and digital rights management and is based on a
risk- and revenue-share model.
About Napster
Napster, the pioneer of digital music, offers the ultimate interactive music experience. With an expanding
roster of offerings including free, Web-based music listening and sharing, subscription and portable
subscription services, and an advanced mobile music platform, Napster creates better ways to discover, share,
acquire and enjoy music - anytime, anywhere. Napster is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in New York,
London, Frankfurt and Tokyo.
About O2 Ireland
O2 comprises mobile network operators in the UK and Ireland, along with integrated fixed/mobile businesses in
Germany and the Czech Republic. It also owns 50% of the Tesco Mobile and Tchibo Mobilfunk joint venture
businesses in the UK and Germany respectively as well as having 100% ownership of Be, a leading UK fixed
broadband provider. In addition, the group includes O2 Airwave, which supplies secure digital communications
to the emergency services and other public safety organizations.
In Ireland O2 is a leading provider of mobile services, offering communications solutions to 1.6 million
customers in Ireland. With offices in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick, O2 Ireland has a total workforce
of over 1,700 employees. In 2006, O2 Ireland was named the best company to work for in Ireland and one of
the 10 best companies to work for in Europe.
About Ericsson's Managed Services offering
Ericsson has the telecom industry's most comprehensive managed services offerings, ranging from designing,
building, operating and managing day-to-day operations of a customer's network, to hosting service
applications and enablers, as well as providing network coverage and capacity on demand. As the undisputed
leader in managed services, Ericsson has officially announced over 100 managed services contracts with
operators worldwide since 2002. In all current managed services contracts, excluding hosting, Ericsson
is managing networks that together serve 80 million subscribers worldwide.
Safe Harbor Statement
Except for historical information, the matters discussed in this press release, in particular matters
related to future revenue and operating expenses; growth of the free and paid music services, the growth
of sales of music-enabled cellular phones and our relationships with wireless carriers are forward-looking
statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties such as decreased demand for our products
and services; failure of our products to interoperate with the hardware products of our customers; intense
competition; failure to maintain relationships with strategic partners and content providers; and general
economic conditions; that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Additional
information on these and other factors are contained in Napster's reports filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC), including the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q as filed with the SEC
on November 8, 2006, copies of which are available at the website maintained by the SEC at
http://www.sec.gov. Napster assumes no obligation to
update the forward-looking statements included in this press release.
Copyright © 2006 Napster, LLC. All rights reserved. Napster, Napster Mobile, Napster To Go and
Napster Light are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Napster, Inc. or its subsidiaries in
the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are owned by their respective owners.
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