Personity, Inc. and Motorola, Inc. announced on March 20 a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in which the companies will collaborate on providing wireless instant messaging, presence and availability management, presence-enabled messaging and voice calling, and other next-generation availability-based solutions to wireless carriers. According to Personity and Motorola officials, the intelligent systems resulting from this understanding represent a major milestone in wireless communications technology, enabling users to reach the people they care about more easily, while managing their communications with others. Today's technology has made it possible to communicate in all sorts of ways -- via phone calls, voice mail, e-mail, and instant messaging -- on all kinds of devices -- like text pagers, cellular phones, wireless PDAs, and laptop computers. Unfortunately, all of this technology has made the simple act of trying to get in touch with someone a complicated and frustrating experience. On the receiving end, users are overwhelmed with the amount of communications they receive, and the number of ways people are trying to reach them. Now, Personity and Motorola intend to provide individuals with the ability to use their wireless devices to easily determine if the people they are trying to reach are available, while enabling them to control their own communications. They say this will make instant communications an even simpler and more pleasing experience. A key component of the solution is Personity's patent-pending presence and availability management technology. Presence technology identifies which communications media -- such as a wireless device, an instant messaging application or an e-mail application -- are available for communication at any moment. Availability technology provides users with control over how they are reached and by whom, by applying preferences and rules that can be customized by each user and changed at will. The Motorola Messenger system, powered by Personity, is the companies' first offering and was demonstrated for the first time at CTIA Wireless 2001 on Motorola's latest GPRS phones, WAP phones, Motorola two-way pagers, and on PCs. According to company officials, Motorola Messenger will seamlessly bridge the worlds of wireless messaging and instant messaging over the Internet, enabling users to exchange instant messages between any device -- wireless phones, PCs and PDAs -- regardless of platform or wireless carrier, and on both current and next-generation wireless systems. Furthermore, Motorola says the Messenger will provide a multitude of communications features for mobile consumers in a single application, such as presence voice dialing and phone number lookup, and user availability control. Combining GPRS data services with voice in this way demonstrates Motorola's approach to maximizing bandwidth utilization, while creating an enhanced and unique user experience, according to Jerry Upton, vice president and general manager of Personal Solutions and Technologies in Motorola's Internet Content and Software Group. "With Personity, we have chosen a partner that not only enables us to provide the best wireless presence and instant messaging solution for our customers today, but a whole new revenue opportunity for wireless network operators," Upton said. "Implementing presence and availability-based services with Personity is another example of how Motorola is committed to working with our partners to create solutions that provide truly intelligent and innovative communication services." As part of the MOU, Motorola plans to license the Personity(TM) Presence and Availability Management (PAM) infrastructure technology, including Personity's carrier-grade infrastructure servers and client applications. "Personity's solutions are based on two simple concepts that have the power to revolutionize communications -- people that you care about want to reach you more easily, and you want to control your communications with others. Personity and Motorola are making these concepts a reality," said Dan Cohen, president and CEO of Personity. "As we launch Personity, we are excited that Motorola is working with us to bring to market compelling wireless presence and instant messaging applications for wireless carriers." About Personity Personity Inc. provides infrastructure technology for Presence and Availability Management (PAM) for enterprises and carriers. Personity's infrastructure software enables enterprises, carriers, and other service providers to deliver compelling new availability-based communications applications to their end users, incorporating text messaging, voice calling, voice over IP (VoIP), video and multimedia conferencing. Personity can also be used to add open standard presence and availability management capabilities to applications such as collaboration, customer service, supply-chain management, and e-commerce. For more information, visit www.personity.com. About Motorola Motorola, Inc. provides integrated communications and embedded electronic solutions. Sales in 2000 were $37.6 billion. For more information, visit www.motorola.com. About CTIA Global Wireless 2001 CTIA Global Wireless is billed as the world's largest wireless trade show, and is hosted by the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA). CTIA is an international organization representing all elements of wireless communication -- cellular, personal communication services enhanced specialized mobile radio, and mobile satellite services -- serving the interests of service providers, manufacturers, and others.