Company to Unveil New 3-D Strategy at NAB

MONTREAL and QUEBEC--(March 16, 2000)--Following months of industry speculation, Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc. unveiled the new name for its next-generation 3-D animation solution code named `Sumatra'. From now on `Sumatra' will be called SOFTIMAGE|XSI.

Softimage's Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing, Patrick Dumas, explains: "Today, we are opening a brand new chapter in the Softimage story. `Sumatra', after several long years of hard work, dedication and passionate belief in a true vision, is about to be released into the hands of our customers. And after many months of discussions , `Sumatra' now has a new name: SOFTIMAGE|XSI."

"The origins of this name are humble," continues Dumas. ".xsi started as an interactive media file format intended to streamline the games development process. Today, .xsi is becoming an integral part of the overall creative process for digital media, whether in the film, broadcast or games industries. Hence, the famous software formerly known as `Sumatra' will be the first component of this new way of streamlining the creative process."

Building on this concept, the XSI initials will be at the core of Softimage's new 3-D branding strategy, which will be unveiled, in detail, at NAB in Las Vegas on April 9th 2000(1).

From .xsi to SOFTIMAGE|XSI The current development pipeline for the film, television and interactive markets is characterised by disjointed and discontinuous processes in which any number of unrelated tools need to be employed in order to realise a given task. Until now, no solution has offered an end-to-end pipeline in which data flows without the need for translation and modification.

It soon became clear that what developed as a means to create, validate and deliver content for games was applicable across the whole spectrum of 3-D animation and could be used as a means to integrate disparate elements of the production pipeline. The .xsi file format is the mechanism utilised within this integration process, but the means to fully realise this process goes far beyond a file format.

The first stages towards this creation and delivery environment are already in place with the file format itself and the SOFTIMAGE|XSI Viewer, a feature that games designers can use to validate artwork before it is passed to the games development team. The SOFTIMAGE|XSI Viewer greatly reduces the need to re-engineer objects due to geometric or animation problems.

The next milestone in this process is the highly anticipated release of the SOFTIMAGE|XSI system that will introduce revolutionary functionality for the creation of 3-D animation and will set the standard against which other animation systems will be judged. The SOFTIMAGE|XSI system will be the 3-D engine driving the creative process.

(1) Note to editors: The Softimage press conference will take place on Sunday 9th April at 9:30 a.m. in the Ballroom of the Hard Rock Hotel, 4455 Paradise Road, Las Vegas. For further information, please contact Veronique Froment on + 1 514 840 0299.

About Avid Technology, Inc.

Avid Technology, Inc., of which Softimage Co. is a subsidiary, is an international, industry-leading provider of digital audio and video tools for information and entertainment applications. Avid's products are used by a variety of customers worldwide including film, television and interactive content producers, TV news broadcasters, corporate communicators and consumers. For more information, visit the Softimage site at www.softimage.com or the Avid's Web site at www.avid.com.

(c)2000 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Product specifications are subject to change without notice. Avid and Softimage are registered trademarks and XSI is a trademark of Avid Technology, Inc. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

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