OpenTV Now Supported By Industry's Top Embedded OS; pSOS Enhances Stability, Time-to-Market for Interactive TV Standard.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 1996--Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun) and THOMSON multimedia S.A. (THOMSON) further strengthened the interactive television (ITV) solution offered through their THOMSON SUN Interactive Alliance with today's announcement that Integrated Systems, Inc. (ISI) will provide the Alliance with ISI's industry-leading embedded operating system.

This further enables the proliferation of interactive television applications running on the Alliance's OpenTV(TM) product family.

OpenTV is an object oriented and platform-independent, interactive run-time environment designed specifically for use in today's digital set-top devices. It is the emerging standard for interactive operating environments and the centerpiece of the Alliances interactive solution for existing infrastructure or future broadband networks. The pSOS kernel adaptation layer that ISI has developed allows a pSOS based set-top box to incorporate the OpenTV interactive application environment, thus providing a premier ITV operating system for OpenTV integration into those boxes.

Integrated Systems is the newest addition to the worldwide network of companies the Alliance is assembling to provide support and resources to their customers. Each of these companies has unique expertise, capabilities, and products to help realize the enormous commercial potential of interactive television. Integrating the Alliance's products and initiatives with those developed by members of this network strengthens the overall impact of OpenTV as an open- systems ITV solution.

Integrated Systems provides the Alliance with the pSOS embedded operating system and related development tools. ISI can also offer customized solutions and engineering services to meet individual customer needs. With expertise in all areas of embedded consumer product development, from hardware design to system integration, Integrated Systems provides OpenTV with a cost effective high performance embedded kernel, plus an integrated development environment with visual analysis and debugging. ISI's solution reduces time-to-volume for ITV product development.

"pSOS provides the Alliance with important enabling technology," said Elliot Broadwin, vice president, Americas and Pacific Rim of the THOMSON SUN Interactive Alliance. "We recognize the value of porting to a reliable, proven, and well-established kernel -- and pSOS is one of the best kernels in the industry today," he continued. "And the OpenTV port to pSOS is already completed so this agreement brings real products that are available to ship today." With over 10 million copies deployed in the field, and the largest installed base in embedded consumer electronics, the pSOS kernel has been field proven for reliability.

Today's announcement augment's ISI's interactive TV solution by layering an ITV application environment, that includes servers, authoring tools, and applications, on top of the company's pSOS operating system. In addition, ISI offers hardware design, operating system and driver integration, and complete system integration services for ITV developers.

"We are very excited about working with the THOMSON SUN Interactive Alliance because the Alliance, like ISI, is focused on ITV solutions that can be deployed in high volume set-top boxes today," said Nathan Pendleton, director of embedded applications at Integrated Systems. "The Alliance's global strength is a perfect complement to ISI's position as the leading real-time OS vendor for consumer products."

The THOMSON SUN Interactive Alliance was formed in November 1994 to develop software products and services for the interactive TV marketplace by leveraging Sun's expertise in client/server software, network management and internet technology and THOMSON's leadership in consumer electronics and digital set-top devices. Our premier product offering, the OpenTV software family is a platform- independent, open solution for delivering interactive services to homes through existing as well as planned networks.

Already chosen for use on networks in South Africa, Benelux, Scandinavia, and France and being actively ported to set-top boxes from many of the most prominent hardware providers in the world, OpenTV is quickly becoming the emerging standard in the world of interactive operating environments.

Headquartered in Paris, THOMSON multimedia S.A. is the world leader in digital television. THOMSON multimedia is the world's fourth largest consumer electronics company. THOMSON is number one in the U.S. marketplace with the RCA, GE and ProScan brands, and number two marketshare in Europe, with several prestigious brand names including THOMSON, Ferguson, Telefunken, Nordmende and Saba. THOMSON is an industry innovator in the development of digital technologies, both for professional and consumer applications.

With the introduction of the RCA Digital Satellite System in the United States, THOMSON became the first consumer electronics company to develop and implement an all digital delivery system for video reception in the home. With revenues of nearly $6 billion, Sun Microsystems, Inc., provides solutions that enable customers to build and maintain open network computing environments. Widely recognized as a proponent of open standards, the company is involved in the design, manufacture and sale of products, technologies and services for commercial and technical computing.

Sun's SPARC(TM) workstations, multiprocessing servers, SPARC microprocessors, Solaris(TM) operating software and service organization each rank No. 1 in the UNIX(R) industry. Founded in 1982, Sun is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and employs more than 14,000 people worldwide. -0-

Note to Editors: Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, Solaris and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd. OpenTV, THOMSON and their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of THOMSON multimedia S.A.and/or its parent company and/or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. All other product or service names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective companies. Trademark(s) (R) Registered Marca(s) Registrada(s).

CONTACT: For THOMSON SUN Interactive Alliance

Phyllis Scargle, 415/336-0514

or

Golden-Loder Associates

Pam Golden-Loder, 908/233-2040

or

For Integrated Systems, Inc.

Rich Rifredi, 408/542-1500

or

Rainier Corporation

Stephen A. Schuster, 508/464-5302