Premion Interface+ Unveiled

GEOWORKS UNVEILS REVOLUTIONARY ENHANCED PHONE SOFTWARE SOLUTION, BROADENING DESIGN AND MARKETING POTENTIAL OF WIRELESS PHONES

Premion Interface+ Provides Quick, Customized Alternative to Generic Devices

ALAMEDA, Calif. (Nov. 16, 1998) - Geoworks Corporation (NASDAQ: GWRX), a leading provider of wireless software and service solutions, today unveiled the Premion Interface+ graphical application environment designed to increase the ease-of-use and functionality of everyday wireless phones. Premion Interface+ turns voice-only handsets into enhanced phones by providing an application platform utilizing both the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) standard and the HTML internet markup language, a flexible graphical user interface (GUI), and innovative technology that enables branding and loyalty programs through Geoworks' Marketing on the Handset. Premion Interface+ provides benefits to the entire wireless telecommunications industry, from manufacturers to operators to consumers.

Designed to run on top of any operating system and phone software, Premion Interface+ is the first product of its class to seamlessly blend a customizable user interface tool set with an industry-standard over-the-air application platform. This enables handset manufacturers to create enhanced phones by easily integrating handset features with both existing operator value-added services and future WAP applications. Enhanced phones are communication devices that have a similar form factor to today's voice-only cellular phones, but are capable of receiving data services and feature graphical user interfaces.

In related news, Mitsubishi shipped its first version of an enhanced phone, called Moem-D, for NTT DoCoMo, the leading service provider in the Japanese market. Geoworks worked closely with Mitsubishi to produce the wireless device that features an intuitive graphical user interface and provides access to a trio of popular Japanese e-mail systems.

"With the launch of the Premion Interface+ application environment, Geoworks has established a new era in the relationship between manufacturers, operators and consumers," said David Thatcher, president and CEO of Geoworks. "Premion Interface+ enables the telecom industry to better serve consumers by providing easy-to-use phones that offer truly valuable features and services. It ushers in a new generation of highly graphical, value-added phones that are actually fun to use."

Premion Interface+ benefits both handset manufacturers and operators through its flexible user interface, its ability to create targeted user interfaces and over-the-air applications, and through its unprecedented branding and affinity opportunities.

Flexible User Interface
The Premion Interface+ GUI smoothly integrates with a handset's existing operating system, but requires no changes to the device's core functionality. This flexibility gives manufacturers a single, highly versatile software toolkit, which enables them to differentiate their products easily, quickly and cost-effectively. Premion Interface+ allows manufacturers to build and test new UI designs and then alter the designs to satisfy specific market or service providers' needs with very little programming time.

"With Premion Interface+, it's finally practical to develop a variety of user interfaces for a single product," said Michael Eggers, Premion Interface+ product manager. "We believe that, in the future, you'll go into a store, select the handset you like, then choose the particular look and feel that best meets your needs and load it into the phone. You will have the ability to customize your phone the way you customize your PC today."

Premion Interface+ also benefits operators because its flexible GUI makes both handsets and services more intuitive to use. This makes it easy for customers to use currently under-utilized telephone services, such as voice mail, call waiting and three-way calling. Because Premion Interface+ makes it faster and easier for consumers to use these services, it paves the way for operators to introduce new data services, such as content delivery, e-mail, and other enhanced services.

Over-the-Air Applications
A key component of Premion Interface+ is its extensible, industry-standard application platform, which lets consumers add capabilities to their handsets long after they leave the store. Utilizing the WAP standard developed by the Wireless Applications Protocol Forum, the Premion Interface+ platform executes "applets" that can be downloaded on demand over the air.

"We joined the WAP Forum because we felt the growth of services was being curtailed by the lack of a common, standardized application environment," said Eggers. "WAP is an emerging standard for developing applications specifically targeted at wireless handsets, and we're pleased to be able to offer a fully compliant WAP platform to our customers. We also support HTML content, since HTML is already the common language of the Internet. No matter which standard they utilize, handset manufacturers can save development time and money by adopting the Premion Interface+ application environment instead of writing their own platform."

Unlike other application platforms, Premion Interface+ is fully extensible, supporting both WML and HTML content markup languages and a variety of third-party technologies, such as voice recognition systems and Tegic's T9 text input system. Manufacturers can easily add new technologies to Premion Interface+, ensuring that today's technology investment will still be valuable tomorrow, no matter how application standards evolve over the coming years.

Marketing on the Handset: Branding Opportunities
Premion Interface+ provides an innovative method for both operators and handset manufacturers to promote their brands to consumers in a non-intrusive manner. The flexible GUI enables handsets to be enhanced with a wide range of images, even animated characters, providing many branding and target marketing opportunities.

With Premion Interface+, operators can also utilize the SMS data capabilities of enhanced phones to flash greetings, advertisements or incentives to users in a non-intrusive, click-and-see format separate from other SMS messages. Operators can utilize this feature to introduce new data services, such as e-mail and delivery of content, including news headlines, stock quotes, weather updates, driving directions and dining information. Because they provide a service that is perceived to be valuable by the consumer, data services have the potential to increase billing minutes, enhance customer loyalty and reduce customer churn.

As the wireless handset market matures, Premion Interface+ could enable location-sensitive networks to display special invitations and incentives on the handset that encourage users to patronize businesses or services in the vicinity.

About Geoworks
Based in Alameda, Calif. with international operations in the United Kingdom and Japan, Geoworks Corporation is a leading provider of end-to-end software solutions for the wireless communications industry. The Company creates operating system software, applications and actionable services for a variety of wireless devices, ranging from enhanced phones to high-end, all-in-one smart communicators. For additional information on Geoworks, contact the Company 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, the emergence of the enhanced phone market, the delivery of wireless content and over-the-air advertising designed for the enhanced phone market, the ability of handset manufacturers to easily and quickly develop easy-to-use features using Geoworks' Premion Interface+, or the ability of operators to create data services to run on devices using Premion Interface+, and the timing, availability and acceptance of content and service offerings worldwide. Actual results may vary significantly due to various risks and uncertainties. Those include, but are not limited to, the following: i) the enhanced phone market may not emerge to the degree or in the timing anticipated; ii) the Company must consummate definitive agreements with key partners; and iii) new technologies and new services are inherently subject to development, timing and consumer acceptance risks. Additional information is available in the Risk Factors and Business discussions in the Company's Forms 10- K, 10-Q and other filings available from the Company or from the Securities and Exchange Commission.