Agfa Monotype Announces i-Mode Character Support for iType Font Subsystem.

Business/Technology Editors

WILMINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 23, 2002

Agfa Monotype Corporation, a major supplier of fonts and font technologies worldwide, has launched iType 2.1, the company's latest font rendering subsystem for digital communication devices. The new version includes character support for i-mode, NTT DoCoMo's (NYSE: DCM) mobile Internet access platform used by more than 28 million cellular phone subscribers in Japan.

Using mobile phones, i-mode subscribers have access to more than 40,000 Internet sites, in addition to a variety of services including e-mail, banking and online shopping. Subscribers are also able to send e-mail messages containing unique image characters - symbols for emotions, objects and activities such as music, tickets, movies, sports, love and even brokenheartedness. The complete i-mode set of 175 characters is available with Agfa Monotype's Japanese stroke-based font. The combined package represents approximately 7,650 characters.

"i-mode has been phenominally successful in Japan," said Steve Kuhlman, vice president of Digital Imaging at Agfa Monotype. "Besides its affordability, convenience and ease of use, people seem to enjoy using i-mode, partly because of its wide selection of image characters that can quickly convey a point without having to spell it out. For OEMs developing devices that support i-mode, our technology eliminates the need to build individual bitmaps for every character and size. That benefit alone translates to reducing development time for both new products and upgrades, which means a much faster time-to-market."

To conserve memory in mobile phones and to ensure the smallest possible file sizes, the i-mode characters for iType were developed using various technologies. Character complexity dictated production: simple characters employ stroke-based technology, while more complicated forms are based on either TrueType(R) outlines or bitmap technology.

Agfa Monotype's i-mode package complies with the Japanese character set standard, Shift JIS X 0208. The additional image characters, however, are not a part of the JIS standard, as they are unique to the i-mode Internet access platform.

Agfa Monotype's iType

iType is a font scaling subsystem that allows for the rapid generation of characters at virtually any point size. By integrating the technology in memory-constrained environments such as smart phones, PDAs and set-top boxes, OEMs are able to build products that can quickly display high-quality text. Manufacturers and developers worldwide have licensed iType, collectively representing millions of digital communication devices that operate with the technology.

iType has two main components: a high-speed TrueType font rasterizer and a suite of fonts. OEMs can select from four prepackaged font sets: a Microsoft(R) Windows(R) -compatible core set that provides metrically equivalent designs; a collection of display fonts engineered for optimal readability on television screens; a TV font pack that meets FCC requirements for closed captioning; and a stroke-based package, a set of composite East Asian fonts that allows OEMs to achieve storage savings of 90 percent or more. Stroke-based fonts are available for Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese languages. OEMs can also work with Agfa Monotype to implement custom typefaces, bitmaps, embedded bitmaps or other TrueType fonts.

About Agfa Monotype Corporation

Headquartered in Wilmington, Mass., Agfa Monotype Corporation specializes in fonts and font technologies for graphic professionals, developers and original equipment manufacturers. The company is also an innovator in color and screening technologies for OEM partners. Agfa Monotype is a wholly owned subsidiary of Agfa Corporation based in Ridgefield Park, N.J. and is part of Agfa's Graphic Systems business unit. Agfa Corporation is the U.S. subsidiary of the Agfa-Gevaert Group, one of the world's leading imaging companies. Agfa develops, produces and markets analog and digital systems primarily for the graphic imaging, healthcare, non-destructive testing, micrographic, and consumer desktop and photography markets. Headquartered in Mortsel, Belgium, Agfa has 40 national sales organizations globally, with worldwide sales of 4.9 billion euros in 2001. Additional information about Agfa Monotype and its products can be found on the company's Web sites at www.agfamonotype.com and www.fonts.com.