from Bloomberg
quote.bloomberg.com
ZI COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF BEIJING OZ
CALGARY, Nov. 1 /CNW-PRN/ - Zi Corporation (TSE: ZIC, NASDAQ: ZICA) today
announced that it has completed the acquisition of Beijing Oz Education
Network System Co. Ltd. (Beijing Oz), a Chinese company, from its owner Oz New
Media Inc., a private Canadian company. This transaction included the issue of
100,000 common shares of Zi Corporation in exchange for all the issued shares
of Beijing Oz.
''Zi's acquisition of Beijing Oz not only assures a greater market share
for our core technology, it adds an important new income stream through the
sale of education and retraining courseware,'' says Michael Lobsinger,
chairman and chief executive officer, Zi Corporation.
Beijing Oz's business is developing and distributing Internet-based
curriculum specific courseware for both elementary schools and career training
in Asia. The courseware was originally developed in Canada by Oz New Media
Inc. and continues to be localized and modified by Beijing Oz to meet local
Chinese requirements. Career courses are marketed under the name COOL (Career
Options On-Line) and the elementary courseware is marketed under the name OWL
(On-line Webstories for Learning). Beijing Oz exclusively licenses the
courseware and associated trade names for China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan,
Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Beijing Oz will continue an active
relationship with Oz New Media; however, Beijing Oz intends to expand its own
ability to develop new courseware with its Chinese partners.
A number of important Chinese ministries have entered into agreements with
Beijing Oz. Each ministry or organization has a specific mandate to educate,
retrain or upgrade their constituents and Beijing Oz's role in each agreement
is to create the multimedia educational content and jointly distribute it via
the Internet. The ministries include the Ministry of Information Industry,
which in collaboration with the China E-Commerce Association and Beijing Oz,
has the national mandate to create a vibrant e-commerce industry in China; and
the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, who seek to retrain the many
Chinese that have become under or un-employed as a result of the restructuring
of Chinese state-owned enterprises.
Distribution is completed through established national digital networks
such as CERNET and ChinaNet and through an agreement with Sino-Satellite
Communications Company (Sinosat). Sinosat delivers content via satellite to
end-users who lack land-line connectivity. Beijing Oz also has agreements with
the China Central Radio and Television University (CRTVU), which, with 600,000
students, is the largest post-secondary education institute in the world and
China's premier elementary school, Beijing Elementary School.
CRTVU and Beijing Oz have agreed to create China's first national on-line
university. Testing began in mid-October and CRTVU and Beijing Oz expect to
commercially launch this service in January 2000. These relationships provide
a strong base for Beijing Oz to become an influential player in China's
emerging on-line educational and e-commerce industries.
The sheer size of China, coupled with its stroke-based language, have been
barriers to the country's aspirations of improving access and standardization
of education and training across the nation. Zi's core technology and its
proprietary input system provide the critical first step for the Chinese
people to gain access to technology. Beijing Oz's curriculum- specific
courseware assures both quality and consistency for on-line learning.
Zi Corporation is a software company making modern electronic technology
more accessible to people in a way that is consistent with their language and
culture. The company's eZiTEXT(TM) input software is licensed in numerous
languages for devices ranging from mobile phones to TV set-top boxes. Zi's
common shares trade on both the Toronto Stock Exchange (ZIC) and the NASDAQ
stock market (ZICA). Zi markets its technology through strategic partnerships
worldwide from offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, San Francisco and Calgary.
Certain statements in this press release constitute forward-looking
statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995. The information in this press release is based on Zi Corporation's
current expectation and assumptions, and is subject to a number of risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those
anticipated. Such risks include, among others, general business and economic
conditions and competitive actions as well as the risks and uncertainties
referred to in Zi Corporation's 20-F for the most recent calendar year.
SOURCE Zi Corporation
-0- 11/01/1999
/CONTACT: Karen Attwell, Manager, Investor/Media Relations, Phone:
403-233-8875, Email: investor@zicorp.com; Web site: zicorp.com
oznewmedia.com
(ZIC. ZICA) |
