ThinkFree and Sourcenext Team to Deliver Benefits of ThinkFree Office Productivity Suite to Japanese Market
SAN JOSE, Calif., May 14 -- ThinkFree, Inc., developer of the first online office productivity suite, and Sourcenext Corporation, the No. 1 provider of PC software in Japan, today announced a license agreement to localize, market, and operate a localized Japanese release of ThinkFree Online (http://www.thinkfree.com/), the free online office productivity suite, as well as ThinkFree Desktop, the offline version of the suite, and ThinkFree Premium, a subscription hybrid service with offline/online capabilities due out in the third quarter of 2007. The deal provides a revenue sharing agreement between the two companies with Sourcenext paying a baseline licensing fee.
ThinkFree Online, which will be called "ThinkFree Tegaru Office," in Japan, is available in a public beta offering at www.thinkfree.co.jp/. The official service including ThinkFree Premium, a subscription based service, will be released in September 2007. ThinkFree is the only complete Internet-based office productivity suite to blend the best of the Internet's collaboration features with comprehensive Microsoft Office compatibility. The online office suite includes three applications -- ThinkFree Write for word processing, ThinkFree Calc for spreadsheet management and ThinkFree Show for creating presentations -- all extremely intuitive to use.
Sourcenext brings the experience of building an empire whose profit has grown more than 50% over the last two years. And they have been the number 1 sales share holder in Japan for the past 4 years, with a user base of 3.6 million.
"Sourcenext has a great reputation with its customers, and we welcome the opportunity to tap into the enthusiasm of the millions of users who count on Sourcenext for everything from personal productivity software, to security, to the latest in PC entertainment," said ThinkFree Founder and CEO, TJ Kang. "ThinkFree can continue to expand the benefits of our software suite in markets looking for high-quality alternatives to more expensive desktop solutions. The level of energy and excitement Sourcenext brings to this relationship will make this launch in Japan and the continued improvement of the product extremely dynamic."
Combining the success and brand recognition of each, the two companies expect this partnership to be the first step in a long process of bringing continuous productivity improvements to the Japanese public. The next release is scheduled for June when ThinkFree Docs (http://www.thinkfreedocs.com/), the social networking site which many have described as the YouTube for office documents, will be localized for the Japanese market.
"Sourcenext has a proud legacy of breaking down the barrier of cost to bring the highest quality software to its users. This partnership with ThinkFree will let us continue that legacy and embrace exciting new technologies, all maintaining the quality and speed that Sourcenext is known for," said Noriyuki Matsuda, Founder and CEO of Sourcenext.
About Sourcenext
Sourcenext (Listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers. Stock code: 4344), the No.1 PC Software unit sales share holder in Japan for the last 4 years, has a proud history of producing a variety of successful software products since its foundation in 1996. It provides over 460 PC software titles from anti-virus, system utilities, document management to edutainment and games. Sourcenext has expanded the number of distribution channels to over 25,000 stores through bookstores, convenience stores, supermarkets, and so on. As a software republisher, it has made many successful alliances with foreign partners including IBM and Disney Interactive Studios. For more information, please contact at pr@sourcenext.com or visit http://www.sourcenext.com/en
About ThinkFree
ThinkFree, Inc., headquartered in San Jose, Calif., is a leading developer of platform-independent office productivity solutions. Majority owned by Haansoft Inc., a publicly held company on the Korean KOSDAQ stock market, ThinkFree's mission is to offer market-leading software solutions that leverage the power of the Internet and provide users with a consistent, unified and productive experience regardless of computing platform. For more information, please contact ThinkFree at +1 (408) 432-5074, or go to www.ThinkFree.com.
ThinkFree and ThinkFree Online are registered trademarks of ThinkFree, Corp. All other trademarks and/or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
ThinkFree Contact:
Jonathan Crow
ThinkFree, Inc.
(408) 432-5068
jcrow@thinkfree.com
Sourcenext Contact:
Yuko Kondo
Corporate Planning,
Sourcenext Corporation
pr@sourcenext.com
