Kazaa Grows With New Language Versions

SYDNEY, Australia, May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Sharman Networks Limited today announced the launch of five new language versions of Kazaa. As well as the English language version, Kazaa v.2.6.3 is now available in German, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, covering more than 30 countries and reaching over one billion potential users.

"This announcement clearly demonstrates Sharman's commitment to build on its position as the developer and publisher of the world's most popular file-sharing application by localizing Kazaa and growing into new territories," said Nikki Hemming, CEO of Sharman Networks.

Italian and Portuguese versions have been launched for the first time, reaching an estimated additional 200 million potential consumers across the globe. Substantial opportunities for peer-to-peer technology and sales and marketing of both global and local licensed content exists in both of these territories, and Sharman looks forward to significant growth in the next 12 months.

The new German, French and Spanish versions provide an upgrade for millions of existing users. Along with providing authorised content to millions of English-speaking consumers, Sharman and its partner Altnet are promoting and selling licensed music and movies in French, German and Spanish.

"By offering Kazaa in new languages we are presenting millions of additional Internet users with the opportunity to access the world's most popular peer-to-peer application," Ms. Hemming said. "This also gives content providers focusing on these consumers the chance to promote and sell licensed works via the most efficient and effective digital distribution mechanism available today."

Some new features in Kazaa v2.6.3 include: * Improved usability through a multiple search tabs, single download button, preview capabilities and a meta data display. * Run up to 24 searches at the same time. * More local licensed content. * Faster downloading of files and peer-to-peer web extension through Magnet links, a powerful promotional tool offering significant bandwidth savings to content providers.

In conjunction with this launch and in consideration of further global growth, Sharman is announcing a change in the method by which it records the downloads of its various applications. With six different language versions and a host of planned future products, Download.com will no longer be able to effectively consolidate the Kazaa download count and as a result users will no longer be directed to Download.com.

"In the past, Download.com has been an effective third party measure of downloads of Kazaa, but as our business has grown globally, redirecting traffic to Download.com is not the best solution for us or our users moving forward," added Ms. Hemming. "The language versions announced today are already being downloaded by users directly from Kazaa.com, representing over 250,000 weekly downloads that are not reported in the Download.com total."

All language versions of Kazaa v2.6.3 are available free to download from http://www.kazaa.com/. Users visiting the Kazaa web sites in various languages will be able to download the application directly from those sites as well. Kazaa Plus, the premium 'ad free' version of Kazaa will be available in the five different languages within the next three months.

About Sharman Networks Limited

Sharman Networks distributes the popular Kazaa software, the leading peer-to-peer application that allows users to search, download, organize and interact with a variety of file types. Founded in 2002, Sharman Networks is a private company committed to distributing computing software applications that are pioneering the digital revolution. Sharman Networks is a worldwide operation. For more information about the Kazaa applications, visit http://www.kazaa.com/. For more information about Sharman Networks, please visit http://www.sharmannetworks.com/.