Bitstream and Netscape to provide dynamic font support for Netscape Communicator users.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 18, 1997--

Netscape to Include Award-winning Bitstream TrueDoc with Netscape Communicator to Enable True Viewing of Fonts and International Languages in Email, Browsing, Discussion Groups and Real-time Collaboration Components

Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) and Netscape Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: NSCP) today announced that they will work together to jointly provide dynamic font support for Netscape Communicator client software users, who will now be able to view Web pages and email messages as they were meant to be seen, across a variety of font and character set encoding. Netscape will include Bitstream(R) TrueDoc(R) with Netscape Communicator, an integrated suite of client software that combines email, browsing, discussion groups, and real-time collaboration.

Bitstream TrueDoc, the award-winning font compression and portability technology, allows true viewing of fonts (including multilingual fonts) across various applications, platforms, operating systems and devices, while maintaining the original look and feel of electronic documents on a wide variety of screens and printers. TrueDoc will be also included with Netscape Communicator Professional Edition, the premium version of Netscape Communicator that contains all five components of the Standard Edition and adds applications for group calendaring, administration and IBM 3270 host access.

Bitstream will also provide Netscape with Bitstream's TrueType(R) and PostScript(TM) Type 1 font processors and a selection of Bitstream typefaces including four new fonts from Bitstream's new URL-series collection (which are optimized for screen legibility and readability), as well as Bitstream Cyberbit(TM), a multilingual Unicode font co-developed with Dynalab Corporation of Taiwan.

"We are extremely pleased to be entering into this agreement with Netscape Communications Corporation, a well-established leader in open software and Internet/intranet solutions," said Ray Boelig, president and chairman of Bitstream Inc. "The combination of Bitstream TrueDoc and Netscape Communicator is evidence of TrueDoc's significance and innovation and positively impacts the Internet's role as an international medium for business and personal communication."

"We are excited about working with Bitstream, as including Bitstream TrueDoc with Netscape Communicator will allow users to navigate through the Web and communicate with dynamic font support," said Mike Homer, senior vice president of marketing at Netscape. "With international Internet usage increasing rapidly and multinational companies deploying intranets, Netscape is committed to addressing the global communication challenge and providing its users and developers with the tools that allow them to communicate in many different languages regularly and simultaneously."

Until now, the Internet had remained limited in one fundamentally important mode of human communication: the display of text. Designers are limited to a few common typefaces if they want to ensure their documents remain intact when viewed online or printed, as typefaces cannot be viewed in Web documents unless the same typefaces are installed on the recipient's system and the recipient has the same device, application and/or operating system. The alternatives are to save the text as graphic files (such as.GIFs or .JPEGs) or convert the whole page to a portable document format (such as .PDF, .DP or .EVY). However, there are many disadvantages associated with these techniques. Text converted to a graphic loses its HTML text properties and can no longer be searched, etc. Saving pages as portable documents requires users to learn new applications and requires document recipients to have extra plug-in applications installed on their systems.

Together, Netscape Communicator and Bitstream TrueDoc help solve this font fidelity problem by making fonts in HTML documents portable. Netscape Communicator software users will be able to create Web documents and email messages with any TrueType or PostScript Type 1 fonts and have images appear correctly when viewed-regardless of fonts or font technologies that are resident on the recipient's system. TrueDoc supports a wide variety of fonts, including non-Latin typefaces such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese (Kanji) and Korean. For example, documents or email authored in Japan in Kanji can be viewed perfectly on a US-only system. In addition, TrueDoc's Portable Font Resources (PFRs) are extremely compact, greatly reducing data-transfer times. TrueDoc will be included with future beta versions of Netscape Communicator and in the upcoming commercial release.

Bitstream TrueDoc technology (US Patents 5,577,177 and 5,583,978) is provided to hardware and software developers as a software developers kit (SDK). TrueDoc offers OEMs and ISVs a font portability and compression solution that is extremely small in code size, and provides superior screen quality including antialiasing capabilities and sub-pixel positioning. TrueDoc records character shapes during the authoring of electronic documents, stores the shapes along with the documents in a highly compressed manner and recreates the characters for viewing.

Bitstream Inc. develops and sells software solutions for the creation, enhancement, transport, viewing and printing of electronic information. Bitstream licenses type libaries and font technology to hundreds of hardware and software developers worldwide. Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. USA, Bitstream is traded on the National Market System under the NASDAQ symbol "BITS," and licenses its products and technologes directly and through its subsidiaries, business agents and distributors in the US, Europe and the Pacific Rim.

Netscape Communications Corporation is a premier provider of open software for linking people and information over enterprise networks and the Internet. The company offers a full line of clients, servers, development tools and commercial applications to create a complete platform for next-generation, live online applications. Traded on NASDAQ under the symbol "NSCP," Netscape Communications Corporation is based in Mountain View, California.

More information on Bitstream and Bitstream TrueDoc technology can be obtained by visiting the company's welcome page at http://www.bitstream.com/world/ or by calling [phone]. Additional information on Netscape Communications Corporation is available on the Internet at http://home.netscape.com, by sending email to [e-mail], or by calling [phone] (corporate customers) or [phone] (individuals).

Bitstream and TrueDoc are registered trademarks and Cyberbit is trademark of Bitstream Inc. Features and availability subject to change. Netscape is a trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation, which is registered in the United States and other countries. The Netscape Communications Corporation logo and Netscape branded products are also trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation. All other products names are trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACT: Bitstream Inc.

Colleen Cronin, 617/520-8329

[e-mail]

or

Netscape Communications Corporation

Dave Bottoms, 415/937-4390

[e-mail]