New Dan Bricklin's demo-it! from Lifeboat Publishing creates 'Business Demos' of Windows applications.

SHREWSBURY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 17, 1995--Dan Bricklin's(R) demo-it!(TM), a new tool designed to create business demos of Windows(TM) applications and products, has been introduced by Lifeboat(R) Publishing, a division of Voyager(R) Software Corp.

Developed by Dan Bricklin, the legendary computer industry pioneer and inventor of the electronic spreadsheet, Dan Bricklin's demo-it! can be used by non-programmers and programming professionals alike.

"Now, marketing and sales people -- as well as programmers -- can develop demos that highlight the salient features of a product they want to show and which users need to see," Bricklin said. "demo-it! allows them to create interactive demos that run at the viewer's pace, or even self-running demos for trade shows. Users are also free to choose and use the screen shots they want and to mix-in animation and sound for a business demo that is certain to get its point across!"

Dan Bricklin's demo-it! creates product presentations and demonstrations, interactive help scripts, tutorials, and self-running demos. It uses powerful combinations of screen captures, text, lines, buttons, bitmaps, and events to create simulations, demonstrations and presentations which make key features and benefits of Windows applications and products come to life on-screen. Multiple text styles, bitmap graphics, animations, hot spots, slide transitions, full mouse control, buttons, timers and sound files can all be incorporated in demos and tutorials, and other applications can be executed from demo-it! to provide user interaction with live applications.

Easy-to-learn and use, demo-it! offers a point-and-click user interface. It converts all objects to compressed bitmap format, offers small and efficient runtime demos and a demo player, and can even run a demo right from the floppy drive of the user's PC, with no installation necessary.

Included with Dan Bricklin's demo it! is an easy-to-use authoring tool, an intelligent screen capture utility, and a space-efficient demo player.

- The authoring tool allows creation of text, line, button, picture, rectangle and slide objects, plus overlays and underlays, and events to sequence and navigate through the demo.

- The screen capture utility lets users grab screen images as bitmaps (up to 8 bits per pixel and 256 colors, both partial and full screens) to place in the demo.

- The demo player (160Kb) runs the runtime compressed version of the demo file in any Windows environment independent of the objects contained in the demo (except for .WAV files and externally-called programs.)

"Lifeboat is proud to bring such an exciting and ground-breaking product to market," said Tom DeGarmo, its vice president and general manager. "Ever since the introduction of VisiCalc in 1979, Dan Bricklin's name has stood for innovation and creative productivity. Now that tradition is being carried forward again with the introduction of Dan Bricklin's demo-it!."

Dan Bricklin's demo-it! requires an industry-standard 386 CPU operating at least 25Mz with 4Mb of RAM, MS-DOS 3.1 higher, and Microsoft(R) Windows, 3.1 or higher. It is available from computer dealers and Lifeboat (800/447-1955) at a suggested list price of $399.

For additional information, contact: Tom DeGarmo, Lifeboat Publishing, 1163 Shrewsbury Avenue, Shrewsbury, NJ 07702; telephone [phone]

Lifeboat Publishing is a division of Voyager Software Corp., the world's leading distributor and reseller of technical PC software. Current titles from Lifeboat include Dan Bricklin's Demo II, the leading DOS prototyping tool, Simple Software's WinWidgets, and Media Cybernetics' HALO Visual Image and HALO(R) Imaging Library. Programmer's Paradise(R), another division of Voyager, markets development tools for Windows, Windows NT(TM) and OS/2(R) directly to users through catalogs in the U.S. and Europe, and through mini-catalog inserts in leading publications. Voyager had worldwide sales of $70 million for 1994.

Lifeboat, Voyager and Programmer's Paradise are registered trademarks, and demo-it! is a trademark of Voyager Software Corp. Dan Bricklin's is a registered trademark of Daniel S. Bricklin. Other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

ATTENTION EDITORS: Review copies of Dan Bricklin's demo-it! and .pcx

format screen shots are available.

CONTACT: Lifeboat Publishing

Tom DeGarmo, 908/389-8950

or

Software Garden

Dan Bricklin, 617/332-2240

or

The Kaminer Group

David A. Kaminer, 914/332-4114