Sonic Foundry Teams With RealNetworks to Deliver Best-of-Breed Live and On-Demand Rich Media Streaming Solution.

Business Editors & Technology Writers

MADISON, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 6, 2002

Sonic Foundry's MediaSite Live(TM) technology chosen

to power RealNetworks' new worldwide Webcasting service;

gives companies a cost-effective, rich media alternative to travel

Sonic Foundry Inc. (Nasdaq:SOFO), a leading provider of rich media software, systems and services, today announced that RealNetworks(R), Inc. (Nasdaq:RNWK) will license MediaSite Live, Sonic Foundry's new live and on-demand Webcasting application.

Through the agreement, MediaSite Live provides a major capability for the new Conference Webcasting Service offered by Real Broadcast Network(TM) (RBN), the content delivery network division of RealNetworks. Together, Sonic Foundry and RealNetworks' offering provides the industry with the most streamlined and easy-to-deploy Webcasting solution available.

By integrating Sonic Foundry's MediaSite Live product, RealNetworks provides a high quality, rich media platform that offers customers significant new capabilities and enhancements over other competing solutions, including:

-- Total flexibility of capturing and streaming any type of digital content --
from presenter video to presentation graphics, such as Microsoft PowerPoint(R)
slides, to any type of business document or other media collateral;

-- High quality delivery of streamed content that can quickly and easily be
scaled to thousands of participants;

-- Instantaneous "on-demand" access to Webcast content after the event; and,

-- Single-source rich media delivery and management services, including
archiving, and, advanced processing for content re-use.

"MediaSite Live gave us the software foundation on which to build a complete turn-key conference Webcasting solution that allows an association or conference producer to truly extend their event online," said Nagesh Pabbisetty, vice president, Real Broadcast Network, RealNetworks, Inc. "Event producers can come to us to help them plan, produce, distribute and market the event online. Through our work with Sonic Foundry, we can offer an easy to use service that our customers can use to create compelling and engaging synchronized multimedia presentations for their end users and members."

Real Broadcast Network's new Conference Webcasting Service incorporates MediaSite Live and is a complete as a turnkey system for capturing, encoding, synchronizing and streaming rich media content to the hosted application. The solution is particularly well suited for conference and association keynote and seminar presentations, and provides RealNetworks with an expanded set of options for producing, hosting and delivering large-scale Webcasts.

"Given the dramatic fall-off and expected continued reduction in company travel and corporate spending, RealNetworks and Sonic Foundry are bringing a combined solution to market that offers all the necessary ingredients users want in a state-of-the-art interactive Webcasting solution," said Rimas Buinevicius, CEO of Sonic Foundry. "MediaSite Live enables individuals and corporations to more easily and effectively create and communicate using rich media at their desktop or laptop in an efficient, engaging way. We are committed to helping our customers leverage, distribute and manage their rich media content in the most cost-effective and powerful way possible."

Because it is part of the Sonic Foundry Media Systems' suite of enterprise-class communication products, content captured with MediaSite Live can be seamlessly incorporated into other Sonic Foundry solutions, including the company's MediaSite Publisher(TM), which makes content easier to find, access and use by providing search, highlighting and navigation capabilities.

Applications for Sonic Foundry and RealNetworks' new Webcasting service include: virtual conferences and tradeshows, company product launches and product-related learning, CEO speeches, earnings calls, damage control or crisis communications, online seminars, corporate training, news announcements, telemedicine and live distance learning.

In January, RealNetworks provided its Conference Webcast service to the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) and deployed a live Webcast of the keynotes and select sessions of the 31st Critical Care Congress from the San Diego Convention Center on Jan. 26-30. With nearly 10,000 worldwide members, the SCCM is the largest multidisciplinary, multiprofessional organization dedicated to ensuring excellence and consistency in the practice of critical care medicine.

For more information on Sonic Foundry and its rich media offerings, contact the company at 412/288-9910 or visit its Website at www.sonicfoundry.com. Additional information and pricing for RealNetworks' new RBN Conference Webcasting Service is available at: www.rbn.com.

About Sonic Foundry

Sonic Foundry(R), founded in 1991, is a leading provider of professional rich media solutions with offices in Madison, Wis., Santa Monica, Ca., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Toronto, Canada.

Sonic Foundry Media Systems (formerly MediaSite) provides a full suite of solutions for the customized development of scalable rich-media communications applications that allow media and entertainment companies, as well as corporate enterprises and government agencies, to deploy, manage and distribute video content on IP-based networks.

Sonic Foundry Media Software develops sophisticated software tools for the creation, editing and publishing of digital multimedia. Production professionals use its Sound Forge(R), ACID(TM), Vegas(R) Video and Vegas(R) Audio tools worldwide for everything from music creation and mastering, to non-linear digital video editing and streaming media development.

Sonic Foundry Media Services is the pre-eminent supplier of digitization, management, and delivery solutions for various industries, with emphasis placed on services for the entertainment sector. These services consist of conversion, reformatting, and encoding of television, film, and audio content for multiple delivery platforms. Serving as the link between content and customers, the services enable media delivery through existing and emerging distribution channels.

About Real Broadcast Network

Real Broadcast Network (RBN) is the content delivery network division of RealNetworks, Inc., and is a recognized leader in providing Internet broadcasting solutions and advanced advertising capabilities through streaming media. RBN is one of the largest hosting solutions providers worldwide, supporting hundreds of radio stations, TV stations and cable networks, as well as broadcasting thousands of discrete online events each month. Consumer audiences are ensured a high quality Internet media experience from narrowband to broadband when experiencing content that is delivered over RBN's distributed network through partnerships with leading backbones and ISPs worldwide. Real Broadcast Network's corporate information is located on the Internet at http://www.rbn.com.

Certain statements contained in this news release regarding matters that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Because such forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, uncertainties pertaining to continued market acceptance for Sonic Foundry's products, its ability to succeed in capturing significant revenues from media services and/or systems, the effect of new competitors in its market, integration of acquired business and other risk factors identified from time to time in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

RealNetworks and Real Broadcast Network are trademarks or registered trademarks of RealNetworks, Inc.