GITWiT's Revolutionary Technology Delivers Recurring Revenue to Wireless Carriers

GITWiT today unveiled a unique set of software products, packaged and delivered as a handset that provides teens with a combined wireless communications and entertainment experience.

The company drives all aspects of this experience through software-embedded Smart Skin(TM) covers combined with GITWiT(TM)-enabled handsets.

GITWiT-enabled handsets are designed for the teen lifestyle and are individually customizable with Smart Skin covers. The GITWIT-enabled handset is a curved, upside down design that supports the single piece, wrap around Smart Skin.

Smart Skins offer entertainment companies a new media vehicle for connecting fans and celebrities. For teens, Smart Skins offer a renewable canvas for displaying their style and affinities. The instant a Smart Skin is snapped onto a GITWiT-enabled handset, the wireless experience morphs to embrace the theme of the skin. Thematic content is stored locally on the skin and is also drawn from websites over the carrier's network. Skins refresh the teen's wireless experience the same way CDs refresh the teen's music experience. Priced from $20 to $40, Smart Skins create an entirely new recurring revenue stream for carriers.

"GITWiT's solution for teens is the wireless equivalent of handheld game consoles, like Nintendo's Game Boy, where the handset is the console and the skins are the games. Just like with games, there are an infinite number of skins that could be produced and the recurring revenue opportunity for GITWiT and for carriers is enormous," said Adam Guy, Senior Analyst -- Mobile Wireless Research for the Strategis Group.

"We're excited to deliver carriers an easy way to capitalize on teens' voracious appetite for change. Smart Skins will churn as profitably as CDs do," said G. Eric Engstrom, CEO and founder of GITWiT. Engstrom likens GITWiT's product philosophy to that of CD players and CDs. Consumers rarely churn CD players, yet new CDs are purchased repeatedly, listened to intensely for a few days, and then tucked away once a new CD is purchased. This vision was created by the former Microsoft executive and is based on his experience developing DirectX -- the technology that became the industry standard, multimedia platform and today provides the foundation for Microsoft's Xbox.

The teen market has traditionally yielded low revenue streams, high subscriber and handset churn rates, and significant cost to attract a largely fickle consumer. GITWiT's solution addresses the carriers' issues head-on. Its proposition gives carriers a solution that increases revenue, lowers acquisition costs and enables the wireless experience to be profitably refreshed through Smart Skin technology.

"The population numbers teens represent, their penchant for new technologies and the fact that they will grow into adult users, make the need to develop wireless technologies for them a top priority for the future," said Kathy McLaughlin, Vice President of Strategic Planning and New Business Development for Microcell Solutions -- "FIDO".

GITWiT's approach reduces the handset subsidies that carriers absorb because its profits are derived from the sale of the software-embedded Smart Skin(TM) covers, not handsets. "We do not want to make money on our handset designs -- we're in the software business," Engstrom said. "We have a winning business model -- one designed to motivate carriers and manufacturers by the same metric." GITWiT's software is based on Linux, and will be available for use in handsets based on GSM, GPRS and Qualcomm's CDMA 1XRTT technologies.

"There is a difference between having a good idea, and executing and delivering on that idea. I've seen Eric deliver amazing consumer products for Microsoft and I know he'll do it again, this time for wireless carriers and their customers," said Brad Silverberg, Managing Partner at Ignition.

Ignition, the VC led by senior Microsoft and McCaw executives who helped revolutionize the Internet, personal computing and wireless technologies, provided Series A funding for GITWiT. Terms of the funding are not disclosed.

GITWiT will be attending CTIA Wireless I.T. For meeting information please contact pr.com.

About GITWiT, Inc.

GITWiT is an innovative software company that delivers wireless carriers a fun, useful and trusted teen solution based on its software-powered Smart Skin(TM) covers that snap onto its revolutionary handset design. GITWiT's business model delivers a new source of recurring revenue for carriers while reducing both the cost of acquisition and churn. GITWiT(TM)-enabled handsets can be profitably refreshed, allowing carriers to rapidly embrace changing fashion and entertainment trends.

GITWiT is headquartered in Kirkland, Washington.

GITWiT, the GITWiT logo, and Smart Skin are trademarks of GITWiT, Inc. For more information, please visit www.GITWiT.com

CONTACT: pr.com
Ellen Gonser, 425/638-4800
Wireless, 425/503-4284
ellen@prdot.com
www.GITWiT.com

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