5th June, 2008:

ATLANTA - Israel-based modu and Germany-based Ubidyne took home the top honors from the U.S. leg of the GSM Association's (GSMA) Mobile Innovation Marketplace tournament on Wednesday.

modu, which was selected as a semi-finalist in the most innovative true mobile startup category, offers a new phone form factor to address personalization. modu is a tiny mobile phone that can be slipped into a variety of modu jackets. The jackets are stylish phone enclosures that let users create a new look or design as well as provide added device functionality.

Ubidyne, which was selected as a semi-finalist in the most innovative carrier infrastructure or platform category, has developed a digital antenna embedded radio technology that completely changes traditional mobile network economics. These integrated active antenna systems eliminate the need for large equipment rooms, inefficient analog amplifiers and bulky equipment and cables on antenna towers and masts.

modu and Ubidyne were selected from a field of 15 companies that were whittled down to five semi-finalists by a board of judges made up of global operators and venture capitalists. The three other semi-finalists besides modu and Ubidyne were Sharpcast, Tagattitude and CooTek.

According to Bill Gajda, chief commercial officer of GSMA, the choice of the final two was quite difficult and required more than one round of voting among the judges.

Marcos Battisti, mobile sector director of Intel Capital and one of the judges, confirmed the difficult task of settling on just two finalists. "The different winners are companies that are truly making an impact in the overall telecommunications space. The industry is going through tremendous change and companies like the ones competing at the Mobile Innovation Marketplace - Americas are providing solutions that will address these challenges."

modu and Ubidyne will move on to compete against four other finalists selected from GSMA's other international event locations in Macau and Barcelona.

The Atlanta-based GSMA event was the first Mobile Innovation Marketplace held in the United States. The Mobile Innovation Global Award Competition was created by the GSMA as part of the Mobile Innovation Market, which encourages breakthrough technology, applications and services in the mobile industry by bringing together smaller companies developing innovative mobile products and solutions, with industry investors and mobile operators and global brands.