Nokia to Participate in General Motors TechWorld

Participation Based On Commitment to Develop Wireless Technologies for Car Environment

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) will showcase wireless communication concepts for vehicles of the future this week at TechWorld, an internal technology show sponsored by General Motors and exclusively attended by GM employees.

The three-day internal event is a forum for automotive technology suppliers and GM executives and employees to discuss ways to integrate new technologies into future cars and trucks. In addition to demonstrating its newest wireless devices, such as the Nokia 8890 world phone and the Nokia 7100 Series WAP phone, Nokia, as a featured key future telematics supplier to GM, will present live demonstrations of Bluetooth, WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), and showcase its next-generation telematics concepts.

Nokia's Smart Traffic Products strategy focuses on the intelligent interplay between "total mobility" and "total integration" in the vehicle. At CeBIT 2000 in Hannover, Germany, Nokia announced the launch of its first-generation telematic units, expected to be available in the second half 2000. They will feature automatic and manual emergency call, breakdown call functions and traffic information.

"There is an ever increasing need for communication between the vehicle and its environment", said K-P Wilska, president, Nokia Inc. (Americas). "We are very pleased to be associated with GM as we move toward the Mobile Information Society."

In the development of this first-generation telematics products, Nokia worked closely with car manufacturers. The telematics unit will initially be available in VW, Audi, GM Opel, Mercedes Benz, and Ford vehicles in Europe. Depending on the manufacturer, the telematics unit will be integrated into the vehicle.

According to Nokia, "innovative mobility" will be made possible by linking a personified profile of what motorists require with technologically advanced solutions -- in hardware as well as software. An in-car Internet is the primary prerequisite for transforming this vision into reality.

Since 1996, Nokia's Smart Traffic Products unit has been developing mobile communications and information solutions for the automobile industry on the basis of GSM, GPS and Internet technologies. The business unit focuses on combining wireless technologies in the vehicle with off-board voice and data services to make them available to consumers, thus establishing a link between the car and the outside world.


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