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Be, Inc. to License Japanese Input Method Add-On from ERGOSOFT Corp.

RELEASED MAY 28, 1998

BE, INC. TO LICENSE JAPANESE INPUT METHOD ADD-ON FROM ERGOSOFT CORP.
ERGOSOFT Corp. to Develop First Add-On for Be, Inc.'s Input Method Architecture.

MENLO PARK, Calif. (May 28, 1998) -- Be, Inc. and ERGOSOFT Corporation have agreed that ERGOSOFT will create a Japanese input method add-on for the Be Operating System. The Japanese input method add-on will be designed from the ground up to leverage the BeOS input method plug-in architecture and will be licensed by Be, Inc.

"The Japanese market embraces new technology and the BeOS has already garnered quite a following there." said Alex Osadzinski, Be's Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "ERGOSOFT is a leader in Input Method technologies and will help us to provide better solutions to this fast-growing market. We hope this is the beginning of a long and successful relationship with ERGOSOFT."

Release 3 of the BeOS, the first version to support Intel-based personal computers, shipped to customers in March. Release 4 of the BeOS, scheduled for later this year, will include Be, Inc's input method plug-in architecture as well as the ERGOSOFT Japanese input method add-on for both Intel and PowerPC versions of the operating system.

"We are very impressed with the performance and ease of use of the BeOS. By developing the input method, we hope to provide better integration for the Japanese market." said Yuichi Asami, Director and Senior Manager of Consumer Sales at ERGOSOFT.

The BeOS is the first, true media OS designed to meet the high-performance needs of digital content design, removing the limitations and complexity of the aging architectures of current mainstream operating systems. The BeOS was designed from the start to support pervasive multithreading, preemptive multitasking, and symmetric multiprocessing to provide developers and users with the highest possible performance.

About Be

Be, Inc., founded in 1990 by Jean-Louis Gassée, is a software company focusing on building new foundations for the next generation of digital content and media design tools. With a team of industry-leading engineers and business executives in the United States and Europe, the company is dedicated to removing the limitations of existing computer architectures and delivering a new level of price performance.

In July 1997, Be published the first public release of the Be Operating System (BeOS), the core product of this strategy. Additional information on Be and the BeOS is available online at http://www.be.com/. Be, Inc. is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

About ERGOSOFT

Since its founding in 1984, ERGOSOFT has concentrated on providing Japanese language processing for the Macintosh. 1985 marked the release of its first large-scale product, a word-processor called EGWORD and the accompanying input method EGBRIDGE. Using their extensive Japanese language processing technologies, ERGOSOFT hopes to stimulate the market with additional development and sales of easy-to-use, convenient software. ERGOSOFT is also planning to expand its market share through more internet related software development and online sales.

Additional information on ERGOSOFT and ERGOSOFT products is available online http://www.ergo.co.jp/. ERGOSOFT Corp. is headquartered in Yokohama, JAPAN.