Joins Smart Card Forum

ALAMEDA, Calif. -(BUSINESS WIRE)- Oct. 14, 1997 - Company Brings Expertise of Wireless Devices to Smart Card Forum; Will Help Create Solutions to Drive Wireless Electronic Commerce

Geoworks (Nasdaq:GWRX), a leading provider of smart phone software solutions, announced today that it will work with the Smart Card Forum to utilize smart card technology on wireless devices, including smart phones.

The Smart Card Forum is a McLean, Virginia-based organization dedicated to accelerating the widespread acceptance of multiple application smart cards. By working with the Smart Card Forum, Geoworks will be able to leverage its extensive smart phone market expertise to help the Forum develop wireless electronic commerce solutions for smart cards.

Smart cards are the size of a typical credit card but are able to store and process information, such as electronic cash, on an integrated microprocessor chip embedded within the card. The card can be inserted into a device which allows users to access the information on the card. Geoworks intends to work with the Smart Card Forum and create new opportunities for wireless handset manufactures to utilize smart card technology. This will enable their customers to perform a wide variety of electronic banking activities or other financial transactions, such as paying for Web-based transactions or transferring funds from a banking account to the card.

"Smart cards are becoming more and more prevalent and the Smart Card Forum is driving the standards that define smart card technology," said Dr. Paul Chen, technology marketing manager at Geoworks. "Every GSM-based handset already includes a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card, which is a smart card dedicated for use in the GSM standard for telecommunications. It makes sense that Geoworks should leverage its expertise in smart phone technology to help the Forum combine smart phone and smart card capabilities. This could create an entirely new paradigm for shopping by turning smart phones into mobile point-of-sale devices."

Smart phone SIM cards include powerful security and encryption capabilities, which can be adapted to enable smart card users to perform secure transaction-based services, such as wireless electronic commerce and secure banking. For example, smart phones could be designed to accept smart cards through a special slot, enabling a smart phone user to access a bank on the Internet to download electronic cash into the electronic purse application of the smart card - in effect, making the smart phone a personal, mobile automated teller machine.

Palo Alto-based analyst firm Killen & Associates estimates that telephone companies will see a dramatic increase in electronic cash and Internet transactions, jumping to 25 billion transactions in 2005 from 250 million in 1996. The firm estimates that 30% of these transactions will be made using smart and stored-value cards.

About Geoworks
Based in Alameda, Calif., Geoworks is a leading software provider for the cellular industry and manufacturers of mobile communicating devices, including smart phones. The company has licensed its GEOS operating system to leading manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, NEC, Toshiba Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Brother International Corp. and Canon Business Machines. In addition, the company intends to work with content and services providers and international cellular operators. For additional information on Geoworks and the GEOS operating system, contact Geoworks at 510/814-1660 or on the World Wide Web at http://www.geoworks.com/ .

In keeping with U.S. law, Geoworks notes that this press release includes forward-looking statements, including the intention to work with the Smart Card Forum to develop applications for smart phones, the potential for wireless device users to perform electronic commerce functions using a wireless device, and the possibility of creating wireless POS terminals that can function as an automated teller machine. Actual results may vary significantly due to various risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the following: i) the risks and uncertainties inherent in the development of complex new technologies; and ii), the smart phone and smart card markets may not emerge to the degree or in the timing anticipated. Additional information is available in the Risk Factors and Business discussions in the Company's Forms 10-K, 10-Q available from the Company or from the Securities and Exchange Commission.