Polar Mobile will be using Cascada Mobile's Breeze mobile development platform to extend its reach beyond smartphones to Java-based mobile phones.

The first Breeze-built mobile application will be for The Hockey News, a leading hockey publication. With Cascada Mobile's Breeze platform, developers can create mobile applications that can take full advantage of the functions and features of mobile phones and smartphones.

"The Hockey News was the first Breeze-built mobile app that these two companies worked on together," said Alan Lysne, CEO of Cascada, Toronto. "Based on the success of this initial mobile application, Cascada hopes to work with Polar Mobile to extend the audience of its other applications designed specifically for smartphone users.

"Cascada Mobile sees this partnership with Polar Mobile as a powerful example of what is possible with its Breeze mobile development platform," he said. "Polar Mobile already had a Blackberry version of its application, so it used Breeze to extend that app out to feature phones."

Breeze-built mobile applications are tested and ported to operate on hundreds of different device makes and models, as well as hundreds of networks around the globe, making Breeze-created applications available and ready to run on billions of phones worldwide.

Media publishers globally are working with Polar Mobile's push-publishing platform to extend their brands to mobile phones. The Hockey News is one of these publishers.

With a history of more than 60 years, The Hockey News is North America's No. 1 selling hockey publication, with 2 million-plus readers.

Hockey fans can receive The Hockey News' latest stories, blogs, features and columns, including close-ups of their favorite stars and teams, opinions and analysis, team-by-team coverage and full-color action shots, directly on their BlackBerry smartphone using the Polar mobile application.

Through device-based applications like The Hockey News' that users download over the air directly to their mobile phone users have access to content from their favorite publications much faster than browsing through traditional mobile Web sites.

"With Cascada Mobile's Breeze platform, developers can create mobile apps in as little as 15 minutes that can take full advantage of the functions and features of mobile phones and smart phones -- from the address book to the camera," Mr. Lysne said.

"Breeze-built mobile applications automatically run on hundreds of different device makes and models, from the most basic feature phones to advanced BlackBerries from RIM, as well as hundreds of networks around the globe without any porting needs," he said.