Esmertec to penetrate home multimedia market further with release of Jbed Multimedia engine

Esmertec(TM) (SWX: ESMN), a leading edge provider of software platforms, applications and services to communication device manufacturers and mobile operators, today announced the release of its Jbed Multimedia engine (Jbed Advanced CDC). Targeted for the next generation of home multimedia devices, the Jbed Multimedia engine is designed to deliver the best interactive applications and services experience on digital set-top boxes, digital televisions and Blu-ray disc players. Thanks to Jbed, consumers can now enjoy new dimensions of their television and DVD programs: interactive program guides, news tickers, enriched multimedia applications like games and online chats with friends.

With the Jbed Multimedia engine, Esmertec has engineered a very robust Java-based platform, leveraging the flexibility and openness of Java while delivering unmatched performance and fastest start-up time in a tiny memory footprint. It is the result of Esmertec's proven expertise in engineering performance for resource constrained devices. Running on a broad variety of processors and operating systems, Jbed Multimedia is designed to reduce multimedia device manufacturers' development costs and risks while accelerating time-to-market of their new devices.

"We are excited to further penetrate the home multimedia devices market where our strong Java engine expertise is ideally suited to answer the increasing demand for interactive digital services" said Joe Burke, EVP Mobile and Multimedia Devices Unit. "The impressive performance of Jbed Multimedia will undoubtedly meet the challenging flexibility and time-to-market demands from multimedia device makers and provide the ultimate digital experience for their consumers."

The Jbed Multimedia engine has already been adopted on leading processors and by major Blu-ray and Set-top Box manufacturers, demonstrating that the technology is making significant inroads into the multimedia device market. According to Jack Browne, Vice President of Marketing, Processor Business Group, MIPS Technologies, a leading provider of industry-standard processors, "The new Jbed Multimedia engine is a perfect match for our high-performance processors like the MIPS32® 74K(TM) and MIPS32® 24K® cores. As multimedia device manufacturers increasingly turn to Java technology to meet consumers demand for interactive devices and functionality, Jbed Multimedia is enabling our customers to achieve the highest Java performance available on the market today."

About the Jbed Multimedia engine

The Jbed Multimedia engine is the new generation of Esmertec's leading Jbed CDC solution for consumer electronics devices. Fully compliant with the Java ME CDC standard, it is optimized for maximizing performance in home multimedia device environments.

- Java ME compliant CDC Virtual Machine, with Foundation and Personal Basis profiles and Optional Security packages
- Multimode Compiler: up to 2.5x better performance than previous versions. Measured performance was higher on all processors against all competitors tested
- Up to 10x faster graphical performance compared to previous versions
- Fastest start up time. For example on one customer's middleware a Blu-ray player started up a commercial title a full 40 seconds faster than a competitive VM on identical hardware
- Esmertec "ASBO" technology enabling tiniest software footprint, requiring less ROM/Flash, through Aggressive Spatial Bytecode Optimization (ASBO).