Antarctica Systems Announces Visual Net 3.0; Focus on End User Experience Delivers Highly Interactive Knowledge Discovery.

Business Editors & High Tech Writers

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 21, 2003

Antarctica Systems Inc., a pioneer in the development of data visualization technology, today announced the availability of Visual Net 3.0. This release provides users with more control over how they view and navigate large information repositories, enabling users to ask better questions of their data, leading to greater insight and better decisions.

Key to the delivery of these new capabilities has been the integration of Macromedia Flash. Visual Net 3.0 builds on existing search and retrieval capabilities to include an early warning system providing a proactive approach to managing business activity data. Antarctica is now targeting new markets, in particular, business intelligence (BI), with a firm footing in supply chain management and network and storage management already established.

"Companies have made huge investments in building and structuring their data, but finding what you need to make your decisions is still way too much work," says Tim Bray, Antarctica Founder and CTO. "The focus of search and BI software has always been on the backend - processing the data quickly to generate answers. The problem is that these tools expect you to know what you're looking for - and that's often not the case."

"The Visual Net deployment demonstrates the power of Macromedia Flash for sophisticated data visualization and knowledge management within the enterprise," said Kevin Lynch, executive vice president and chief software architect, Macromedia. "Macromedia Flash enables companies such as Antarctica to communicate visual data in a way that is compelling and easy for users to understand, increasing the value of information and enabling data to be efficiently shared across the enterprise and supplier network."

Visual Net creates large-scale interactive maps that guide users to improved decisions and more efficient use of existing enterprise information.

New Capabilities with Visual Net 3.0

-- The ability to configure the Visual Net interface using color, shape and size to immediately bring the most important data to the surface of the maps and convey overall trends, so users are quickly alerted to relevant and potentially critical information.

-- Macromedia Flash interface provides superior polish and flexibility allowing users to control how and what information is displayed in the interface, increasing usability and saving time for both novice and expert users.

-- Powerful filtering capabilities allow users to drive their browsing experience based on any selection of data fields, for fast ad hoc querying, exploration and trend identification.

Visual Net 3.0 integrates easily with existing infrastructure to exploit the investments that enterprises have already made in search and BI technology, so they get more and better use of their data. Visual Net 3.0 is available immediately.

About Antarctica Systems Inc.

With offices in Seattle, WA, Chicago, IL and headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Antarctica is a pioneer developer of data visualization technology. Antarctica was founded in 1999 by search engine pioneer and XML co-creator Tim Bray. Privately held, Antarctica's investment partners include BDC, Royal Bank Capital Partners, the Working Opportunity Fund and Primaxis Technology Ventures Inc. For additional information, please visit http://antarctica.net or call 866-NET-MAPS.

Antarctica and Visual Net are trademarks or registered trademarks of Antarctica Systems Inc. in Canada and foreign countries. All other referenced trademarks belong to their respective owners.