ENCINITAS, Calif.-Truly Telecommunications Co. Ltd. plans to design and produce its first Global System for Mobile communications handset in cooperation with Telecom Technology Centre in Hong Kong, under a multimillion-dollar contract with CommQuest Technologies.
TTC will assist Truly with handset design, printed circuit-board modifications, user-interface software customization, testing and other technical support, CommQuest said.
CommQuest and TTC announced a partnership last month. “The goal of this partnership is to help local companies like Truly compete in the rapidly growing wireless market by designing and producing full-featured phones far faster than industry norms,” said Hussein S. El-Ghoroury, president and chief executive officer of CommQuest.
The strategic agreement between TTC and CommQuest calls for TTC, a telecommunications product developer, to support Comm-Quest customers in handset design, and CommQuest, a company of IBM Corp., to maintain engineers at TTC’s Hong Kong facility.
“We researched design options around the world and are convinced that CommQuest’s product offering is the most comprehensive,” said Lam Wai Wah, chairman and managing director of Truly’s parent company, Truly International Holdings Ltd. “The fact that we have immediate access to TTC locally is yet another competitive advantage.”
Truly’s International Holdings, with 1997 sales of $76.8 million, specializes in manufacturing pagers, liquid crystal displays and calculators. More than half its sales are to companies in Hong Kong and China, said CommQuest.
