Advanced Reality Introduces Peer-to-Peer Collaboration Platform that Makes Any Application Collaborative.

Business/Technology Editors

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 10, 2001

Presence-AR Enables Enterprises and Software Developers to Enhance

Existing and New Applications with Secure Real-Time Collaboration

Capabilities

Advanced Reality, Inc., the company that makes applications collaborative, today announced Presence-AR the first peer-to-peer collaboration platform that embeds secure real-time collaborative capabilities directly into existing and new applications. Presence-AR enables enterprise and commercial software developers to add collaborative functionality to any application without modifying or rewriting its source code. This capability increases end-users' productivity by allowing them to collaborate on documents and data using familiar applications, and releases the untapped value in existing software systems. Using a patent-pending technology that makes the data itself collaborative, Presence-AR allows users to collaborate on the same data using different applications and access devices including PCs, handhelds, and mobile phones.

"Having a collaborative application architecture promotes efficiency and effectiveness. Advanced Reality provides enterprises and ISVs with new opportunities for melding together business processes and applications in a collaborative fashion," said Tyler McDaniel, Director, Application Strategies, Hurwitz Group. "The company's data-centric collaboration platform embeds cross platform and access device independent capabilities that can extend the reach and value of existing applications."

Collaboration Across Any Platform, Application, and Device

Presence-AR operates at the data layer to transparently provide, via an application specific adapter, all the necessary infrastructure elements required to make any application collaborative. It uses a radically new and efficient "data-centric model" where the data itself becomes collaborative and is not bound to a particular hardware platform, operating system, application, or user interface. As a result, Presence-AR allows users to collaborate on the same data using different applications. For example, users in different operating companies of a multinational corporation could collaborate on a financial spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, and a custom developed accounting application. In addition, Presence-AR can dynamically adapt views of the same data for the capabilities of any access device including PCs, handhelds, and mobile phones.

"Collaboration is most valuable when done in context rather than in isolation," said Mark Levitt, Research Director of Collaborative Computing at IDC. "Advanced Reality's solution is to help people create collaborative sessions that can seamlessly tie together and share data with multiple applications - to streamline complex business processes."

"The ability to add collaboration capabilities to our existing radiological visualization system, and collaborate in real-time with doctors anywhere, is a major breakthrough for medicine," said Dr. Don Schomer, Director of Outpatient Therapy, M.D. Anderson, one of the nation's leading cancer treatment and research centers. "Presence-AR enables several experts to manipulate and share precisely the same views of complex images, using a system we are already familiar with, so we can better care for patients."

Enterprise Level Security

To meet enterprise-class security requirements, Presence-AR encrypts data as it moves between participants in a session and supports multiple authentication technologies to confirm a user's identity including passwords, digital certificates, token cards, etc. Presence-AR also provides robust access control capabilities to enforce business rules that govern which data a given user is authorized to view and/or modify. To leverage existing security infrastructures, Presence-AR integrates with directory services such as Active Directory that contain role-based access control rules and file permissions for individual user accounts.

"Advanced Reality offers a novel solution that enables users to collaborate from within business applications," said Dr. David Bonner, Global Director -Technology, at Rohm and Haas Company, one of the world's largest manufacturers of specialty materials. "We are evaluating applications where the real-time, collaborative functionality provided by Presence-AR can streamline business processes and create a competitive advantage for our organization."

Peer-to-Peer for Persistence and Scalability

Presence-AR uses a peer-to-peer architecture that has been adapted for enterprise use and provides fail-over, load balancing, and support for client/server deployments. It is the only real-time collaboration platform that allows a session to persist when the host signs-off or is inadvertently disconnected. Unlike existing collaboration software that simply allows file sharing or asynchronous application collaboration, Presence-AR provides synchronous and asynchronous collaboration within the same session. This enables participants, in different time zones for example, to join and leave a session at will. Presence-AR can also dynamically migrate between peer-to-peer and client/server network configurations to support ad-hoc collaboration as well as server-centric inter-enterprise applications such as Web-based supply chains.

"Real-time collaboration within and between enterprises has the potential to create the biggest boost in end-user productivity since the introduction of email. The key to unlocking this potential is to make collaboration capabilities transparent and intuitive to users by building them directly into applications," said Derek Ruths, Chief Scientist, Advanced Reality. "Presence-AR is the first solution that enables enterprises and software developers to add secure and real-time collaborative functionality into existing and new applications with minimal effort."

Presence-AR Architecture

Presence-AR is a Java-based program that runs on the Java Virtual Machine. It integrates easily with existing and new applications through a custom developed adaptor, and does not require reprogramming of the application. Presence-AR is compatible with XML and SOAP, and will support C# in an upcoming release. It enables developers to add collaborative functions easily and transparently, so they can focus on building the core functionality of new applications. Presence-AR manages:

-- Networking connections

-- Data exchange synchronization

-- Interoperability with operating systems, applications, and directory
services

-- Session and resource security including encryption, authentication, and
access control

-- Collaborative session resources

-- Transparent fail-over in peer-to-peer or client-server configurations

-- Load balancing for enterprise scalability

Pricing and Availability

Presence-AR is available immediately from Advanced Reality. Enterprise and OEM pricing is based on application requirements and size. Integration services are available from Advanced Reality and its business partners. A Software Developers Kit (SDK) for enterprise developers will be available next year.

Company Background

Founded in October 2000, Advanced Reality, Inc. develops software that makes existing and new applications collaborative without the need for complex programming or expensive infrastructure. The company's flagship product, Presence-AR, enables real-time collaboration across any computing platform, operating system, application, and access device. Advanced Reality customers are enterprises, commercial software vendors, and service providers that want to make existing, and new, applications collaborative. Advanced Reality is privately held and headquartered in Houston, Texas. To contact Advanced Reality call 713.526.4860, visit us on the Web at http://www.advancedreality.com/, or write to [e-mail].