London, April 8, 2014 – Vodafone (VOD) Egypt, the largest mobile operator in Egypt in revenue share and customer base, and Intertrust Technologies Corporation, pioneer of trusted computing technologies, announced today that Kotobi, the first dedicated Arabic online bookstore is using Intertrust’s ExpressPlay™ DRM technology to manage and protect its eBook content.
Kotobi is a joint project of the Vodafone Innovation Team and partners who are committed to making Arabic language eBooks more accessible and to removing barriers to authors and publishers.
“The Arabic ePublishing industry is currently small but has tremendous growth potential,” said Ashraf Maklad representing the Innovation Team at Vodafone Egypt. “When we set out to launch Kotobi, we found ourselves overwhelmed with numerous technology challenges because most technologies focus on Latin and East Asian languages. Intertrust saw the long-term potential of our service and helped us deliver a customized solution for Arabic that met our technical and financial requirements.”
ExpressPlay, is a cloud-based content protection system with an integrated tamper resistant SDK for eBooks, video, audio, and games. ExpressPlay is based on the open Marlin DRM standard that has been deployed in hundreds of millions of consumer electronics and mobile products around the world. “Egypt is the cultural heart of the Arabic-speaking world, for literature, film and music,” said Gilles Boccon-Gibod, Senior Vice President for Technology at Intertrust. “Vodafone’s Kotobi is a huge step forward in providing electronic books for the Arab market and will provide readers across the world the opportunity to consume eBooks on tablets and smartphones seamlessly.”
About Vodafone Egypt Vodafone Egypt has grown over the years to become the leading mobile operator in Egypt, not only in revenue share but also to become the number one mobile operator in Egypt with the largest customer base. Vodafone proudly offers the most advanced technology for its customers, the best working environment for its 6,500 employees and the strongest corporate responsibility initiatives for the community. Kotobi was created by the Vodafone Egypt Innovation Team to increase the availability of eBooks written in Arabic, the fifth most spoken language in the world. For more information, go to:https://twitter.com/VodafoneEgypt
About Intertrust Intertrust invents, develops, and delivers technologies for trusted computing among leading global corporations from mobile and CE manufacturers and service providers, to enterprise software platform companies. Intertrust and its subsidiaries are also developing new trust services for vertical markets related to consumer privacy, Internet processing of DNA data, and smart grids. Intertrust actively creates and invests in ventures that extend its market vision. Current and former portfolio companies include Personagraph, Kabuto, whiteCryption, SyncTV, Nest Labs, Kiora, and Marinexplore. Intertrust is also committed to driving open standards, and is one of the founders of Marlin DRM. Marlin is the Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution for YouView in the UK, Italy’s Tivù and many IPTV services in Japan, and is currently the fastest growing DRM technology in China. Intertrust’s Marlin ExpressPlay solution is rapidly growing for distributing video, audio, and ebook content, and Intertrust’s Seacert subsidiary is the world’s leading digital certificate authority for Marlin. Founded in 1990 on a revolutionary vision to bring trust to operating systems and open networks, Intertrust is based in Silicon Valley, with regional offices in London and Beijing. The Company has a legacy of invention, and its fundamental contributions in the areas of computer security and digital trust are globally recognized. Intertrust holds hundreds of patents that are key to Internet security, trust, and privacy management components of operating systems, trusted mobile code and networked operating environments, web services, and cloud computing.For more information, follow us at: https://twitter.com/intertrusttech or http://www.linkedin.com/company/intertrust.
# # # Intertrust Media Contacts
Robin Buckley
Buckley & Kaldenbach Inc.
703.533.9805 or 703.201.3524 (mobile)
[email protected]
Leigh Anne Varney
Varney Business Communication
415.713.0713
[email protected]