Macromedia to Join Ecma International; Work on ECMAScript Is Part of Broad, Ongoing Standards Support for Flash Products.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 17, 2003

Macromedia (Nasdaq:MACR) today announced that it has formally applied for membership in Ecma International, an industry association dedicated to the standardization of information and communication technology, which developed and maintains the key standard ECMAScript (ECMA-262 and ISO/IEC 16262) -- widely known through implementations such as Netscape JavaScript, Microsoft JScript, and Macromedia ActionScript. ActionScript is used as the procedural scripting language for Macromedia(R) Flash(TM) and Macromedia Flex(TM) (announced today, see separate release).

"As the adoption of rich Internet applications delivered with Flash continues to accelerate, ensuring developers can use the standards with which they are fluent becomes even more of a necessity," said David Mendels, senior vice president, Macromedia. "We look forward to working with Ecma International on this important standard."

By joining Ecma International, Macromedia will take a key role in the ongoing development of the ECMAScript standard in the organization's Programming Language technical committee (TC39). The goal of TC39 is to maintain a single leading standard for scripting that can be used for as many competing implementations as possible, and makes "forking" unnecessary.

"Standards have become business critical for any company building web development and deployment technologies," said Jan W. van den Beld, secretary general, Ecma International. "Macromedia has clearly shown its commitment to open standards over the years and they are a welcome addition to ensuring the continued flexibility and power of ECMAScript."

In another major commitment to supporting key industry standards, Macromedia also announced today that Macromedia Flex, a presentation server and application framework, incorporates key standards from the W3C, including Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Extensible Markup Language (XML), and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) web services.

Flex offers a standards-based framework for creating enterprise-class rich Internet applications. Flex is the latest example of a Macromedia product built on the strength of industry standards. Flex will operate on Sun Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) servers in its initial release and on Microsoft .NET servers in a future release. The Flex application framework leverages XML and SOAP web services for data interchange, CSS for style control, and SVG for static graphic primitives and shapes. The declarative programming language for defining rich application front ends is based entirely on XML syntax.

Macromedia today also published version 7 of the Macromedia Flash (SWF) file format, available at http://www.macromedia.com/go/swf7/. This newly updated format specification builds on the company's previously stated goal of enabling developers to build authoring tools and servers that leverage the broad penetration of Macromedia Flash Player. Macromedia has published the Flash file format with each release of the player for five years, which numerous ISVs use to add Flash support to their tools, servers, and utilities.

In addition to joining Ecma International, Macromedia is also a current member of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Java Community Process Executive Committee.

About ECMAScript

The ECMAScript (ECMA-262 or ISO/IEC 16262) Language Specification 3rd Edition, December 1999, is the foundation for web pages that do something more than displaying text and images. It is estimated that nearly 70% of all web pages contain instances of ECMAScript. In February 2003, popular search engine Google found 10 million references to "JavaScript," 400,000 references to "Jscript," and 40,000 references to "ECMAScript."

The international standardization of the language was originally driven by Ecma International members Netscape and Microsoft, whose browser- or server-specific implementations include Netscape/AOL's JavaScript and Microsoft's JScript, which offer supersets of this full-featured programming language. Macromedia used ECMAScript as the basis for the procedural scripting language ActionScript in Macromedia Flash, which was introduced in 2000.

Ecma International is in the process of harmonizing the various diverging extensions of ECMAScript. The second full version of the language will be published as ECMA-262 Edition 4 in 2004. This will update the standard with respect to the language and the various differing implementations.

About Ecma International

Since its inception in 1961, Ecma International (Ecma) has developed standards for information and communication technology (ICT) and consumer electronics (CE). Ecma is a not-for-profit industry association of technology developers, vendors and users. Industry and other experts work together in Ecma to complete standards. Ecma then submits the approved work for approval as ISO, ISO/IEC and ETSI standards.

Main areas of standardization include: Scripting and programming languages; Optical and Magnetic storage; High speed interconnects; Safety, Environmental, Acoustical and Electromagnetic product attributes; Enterprise and Proximity Communication and Networking; and File and Volume structures. Publications can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.ecma-international.org.

About Macromedia

Experience matters. Macromedia is motivated by the belief that great experiences build great businesses. Our software empowers millions of business users, developers, and designers to create and deliver effective, compelling, and memorable experiences -- on the Internet, on fixed media, on wireless, and on digital devices.

Macromedia, the Macromedia logo, Macromedia Flash, and Macromedia Flex are trademarks or registered trademarks of Macromedia, Inc., which may be registered in the United States and internationally. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.