SANTA BARBARA, Calif. and BERN, Switzerland -- 724 Solutions, a leading provider of next generation mobile data solutions enabling seamless communications in an IP-based world, and Swisscom, the leading telecommunications provider in Switzerland, today announced a joint strategic partnership to develop, trial and commercialize next generation messaging services, leveraging 724’s Seamless Messaging Solution and Swisscom’s IMS and mobile messaging services.

The joint collaboration between 724 Solutions and Swisscom will focus on identifying and implementing the technical and business aspects of seamlessly bridging SMS and MMS services from the installed base of Swisscom’s mobile subscribers to their IMS subscribers. The collaboration will also explore new advanced messaging services that can be offered in Swisscom’s converged environment.

724’s Seamless Messaging Solution is an any-to-any messaging solution that bridges communications between subscribers, regardless of the devices, clients, networks or applications that they may be using. With 724’s Seamless Messaging, Swisscom will leverage their network assets, such as identity and presence, and dynamically route and adapt messages as they flow through the network, ensuring they are delivered to users in the format that is appropriate for the environment or device in which they are operating at that point in time.

“Swisscom leads the market with our IMS deployment and we are now adding functionality to quickly and easily offer enhanced and next generation mobile data services,” said Markus Doetsch, Head of Convergent Platform and Product Development for Swisscom. “We believe that collaborating with 724 Solutions to bridge SMS and MMS to new IMS devices with their Seamless Messaging will enhance the market appeal of our IMS offerings and accelerate adoption of those new services.”

“By seamlessly bridging the traditional messaging domains to their new IMS domain, Swisscom ensures that adopters of new IMS services remain connected to other users that are within their communities of interest, thereby ensuring a higher level of interactivity among all users, accelerating the return from their IMS investment,” said John Sims, Chief Executive Officer of 724 Solutions. “Collaborating with a market innovator like Swisscom, allows us to further refine the implementation details of Seamless Messaging and explore all of the requirements associated with creating a fully connected messaging paradigm.”

724 Solutions Inc.

Swisscom AG (NYSE: SCM)