This week at Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona, RealNetworks, Inc. will highlight its mobile entertainment offerings that allow mobile operators to bring subscribers into the era of mobile personalisation by providing the music, games and video that subscribers want in order to individualise their mobile experiences. Real's CEO, Rob Glaser, will outline the company's Entertainment as a Service strategy at Billboard and Hollywood Reporter's "Mobile Backstage" conference, focusing on the ways mobile operators can increase ARPU by offering mobile entertainment services to subscribers.

    Real announced that it has renewed its Music-on-Demand contract with SK Telecom for the acclaimed MelOn service. In addition the company is launching touch-screen support for mobile games - including for its upcoming game Little Shop of Treasures which will be one of the first hidden object games on the mobile platform - and is highlighting a unique alliance with Honda which will sponsor a critically-acclaimed game.

    Real will preview the Q2 release of Helix Mobile Server v12. Fast Channel Switching will bring a more "TV like" viewing experience to subscribers as they change between mobile video "channels," reducing switch time from 10-15 seconds to just 3-5 seconds, eliminating dead time between videos. Because the Internet was built to handle text-based information, not audio and video and other rich media, RealNetworks, Inc. foresaw the need for specific solutions that could handle the creation, delivery and consumption of media via the Internet.

    Rate Adaptation improvements for on-demand content will improve overall end-user quality of service, particularly with fluctuating networks. The feature automatically delivers the highest bit-rate stream that can be supported by the network at any given time. The high quality video delivery of Helix Mobile Server enables mobile operators worldwide to provide customers with the new video services they desire. Helix Mobile Server continues to support open standards and multiple media data types, with broad playback reach to over 175 million handsets worldwide.

    In PC-based casual games, Real is known for its innovative mobile game titles and technology. With an extensive catalog of award-winning titles, Real has announced today that more than a dozen mobile games are now optimized for phones featuring touch screens. Strategy Analytics forecasts that nearly 30 percent of phones will feature touch screens by 2010. In April, RealArcade Mobile will release Little Shop of Treasures, a hidden object game based on a top-5 most-downloaded game in Real's games network.

    Real, with its long heritage in streaming video, also announced that the next generation of Helix Mobile Server, currently in Beta with leading European mobile carriers, will be available broadly in Q2 2008, including new features and performance enhancements that will help operators drive adoption of video on mobile devices. Topping the list of new features is Fast Channel Switching and improvements to Rate Adaptation for on-demand mobile content.