MICROSOFT & TI ANNOUNCE COLLABORATION ON WINS CE.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) (NYSE: TXN) announced that they will collaborate to enable Microsoft Windows CE-based application and embedded system development utilizing the real-time functionality and performance of TI's programmable digital signal processors (DSPs). This effort will expand the development of emerging Internet appliances and embedded solutions among consumers and business users.

This relationship allows developers to benefit from increased design flexibility and performance enabled by fast and easy utilization of TI's programmable DSP technology with the Windows CE operating system. Windows CE enables developers to build rich, connected embedded solutions based on the familiar Win32 API. This collaboration will enable a wide range of embedded solutions with broadband and multimedia functionality including wireless Internet access, streaming audio and video, still imaging, videoconferencing, and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).

Programmable DSP technology is the key to providing system performance at the low power required by mobile Internet and embedded applications. Today, TI DSPs function as the processing engine in a wide range of systems including more than 60 percent of digital wireless handsets (source: Dataquest, July 26, 1999). As a result of this collaboration, developers for Windows CE will soon be able to directly target TI's Open Multimedia Application Platform (OMAP), enabled by the recently announced TMS320C55x DSP, to design programs for advanced wireless Internet access, including future voice, data and video functions such as digital audio, e-commerce and real-time video streaming on wireless handsets.

More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/embedded/.