Wavecom Launches WISMO Flex
New Wireless Technology Solution Combines Design Flexibility and Time-to-Market for Handset Manufacturers
Issy-les-Moulineaux, France -- Wavecom SA today announced the launch of WISMO Flex, a complete wireless technology solution that offers handset manufacturers significant development time and cost benefits. WISMO Flex is a new type of hardware platform, fully supported by software and services, which combines the ease of integration and time-to-market of wireless standard modules with the design flexibility of chipsets.
Currently unique in the market, WISMO Flex features a complete hardware platform for handset applications in four parts: an RF module, a baseband chip, a power management chip and an audio filters chip. Each component can be placed separately, anywhere within the handset, which gives the handset manufacturer's R&D teams greater control over the form factor of the handset. Developers can add features through external memory and companion chips, and choose their own peripherals and memory chips.
While providing greater flexibility than traditional wireless standard modules, WISMO Flex has kept the key advantage of the module concept: easy integration, enabling superior time-to-market. WISMO Flex, which is pre-tested and delivered with the supporting software, development tools and services, greatly simplifies development and type approval. The low parts count and standard component size make for easy automated mounting. This, in combination with the high level of technical support provided by Wavecom, can reduce time-to-volume to as little as 6 months.
Wavecom is also enhancing its offering of MUSE Platform development tools for the handset market, extending the existing Open MMI offering with two new products to support WISMO Flex: Advanced Open MMI and Open Stack.
Advanced Open MMI opens up source codes above and below the existing application programming interface, enabling greater customisation and sophistication. Advanced Open MMI provides engineers with access to all key system software ingredients and interfaces as well as the tools to interconnect almost anything. These include not only application programming interfaces (APIs), but also voice, SMS and MMS, communications management, graphical engine, device drivers, mass storage and SIM tool kit as well as display, video and audio drivers.
On a third level, customers may select Open Stack, which gives access to the Wavecom-designed layers 2 and 3 of the GSM/GPRS protocol stack. Intended for clients with significant wireless development and engineering resources, Open Stack can help handset manufacturers simplify and streamline the validation and field testing of their new products.
"In today's crowded handset market, manufacturers need to create a great variety of handsets, with a rapidly increasing number of features and applications, in order to retain their competitive edge," explains Guy Lanrezac, Wavecom's Marketing Director Handsets. "Many handset manufacturers do not want to or cannot spend valuable time and resources developing the core technology for all their product models themselves. WISMO Flex allows handset makers with good R&D expertise to develop many different phones in record time with greater design flexibility than previously available."
WISMO Flex and MUSE Platform Advanced Open MMI and Open Stack will be ready to start integration in customer applications in the fourth quarter of 2003. They are currently offered within Wavecom's Compact Phones Development Lab.
WISMO Flex will be demonstrated at Wavecom's booth 4261-134 at the ITU Telecom World exhibition in Geneva from 12 to 18 October 2003.