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IOMO Engaged In Covert Operations! May27th, 2003. IOMO, the UK mobile games developer, today announced that it has acquired fellow mobile studio Covert Operations Ltd for an undisclosed sum of cash and shares. As part of the acquisition, Niall Fraser, Managing Director of Covert Operations has joined IOMO as Development Director. All current Covert staff have been retained and relocated to IOMOs studios in Eastleigh, Hampshire, UK. Covert Operations was one of the most experienced developers of mobile games in the UK, working across the Nintendo Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance and java-enabled mobile phones. The studio developed the Game Boy Color version of the award-winning Denki Blocks! As well as many high profile licenced and branded games available for mobile phones in the UK today. The mobile games market is one of the most rapidly growing sectors in the interactive entertainment industry, with many key companies from the traditional gaming area and several of the world's leading media companies now entering the mobile space. The advent of java-enabled handsets and colour screens promises to allow the mobile gaming sector to reach its full potential with hundreds of millions of players around the world accessing games through their mobile phones within the next 2-3 years. "The mobile entertainment industry is growing at a tremendous rate and a lot of consolidation has occurred over the last few years,"said John Chasey, the Managing Director of IOMO. "The acquisition of Covert Operations is a natural move that will allow us to expand our capacity and acquire both assets and extremely experienced staff simultaneously." "The rapid growth of the mobile gaming market means that the expectations for developers are rising constantly,"said Niall Fraser, the former MD of Covert Operations. "Covert had reached the point where we had to either expand greatly or join a company which has the resources to take full advantage of the market as it continues to grow. We're very pleased to be joining such a leading developer as IOMO. Their staff and their products are very highly regarded across the industry and we look forward to working with them." ENDS. About IOMO IOMO is a BAFTA-nominated independent developer of entertainment content for mobile devices, based in the United Kingdom. Since the company was founded in April 2000, it has developed over forty titles. Projects have included some of the biggest licences in the mobile world such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf, Scooby Doo, Stuntman, Wentworth Golf, Thunderbirds, Thief: Constantine's Sword and TxtDating. Clients are from all areas of the mobile industry worldwide including manufacturers, portals, wireless publishers/aggregators and traditional game publishers. They include Nokia, Vodafone, Digital Bridges, In-fusio, iFone, Aspiro and Eidos. IOMO are founding members of TIGA (The Independent Game Developers Association, www.tiga.org).