StarPress Multimedia forms distribution agreement with Opera Multimedia

Business Wire, March 14, 1995

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 14, 1995--StarPress Multimedia, the San Francisco-based multimedia developer and publisher, today announced a distribution agreement with Opera Multimedia, Olivetti Telemedia's multimedia division, to distribute its first eight titles in the U.S., beginning with Tour Italia, Scientific American's Homo Sapiens and The Uffizi Museum of Florence.

The agreement is a result of StarPress Multimedia's recent European joint venture with Olivetti Telemedia to form Olivetti StarPress Europe, a CD-ROM pan-European publishing and distribution business for the edutainment and infotainment markets. "The distribution agreement with Opera Multimedia is a part of our overall strategy in establishing a relationship with a leading European CD-ROM publishing company," said Ron Posner, president and CEO of StarPress and chairman of the newly formed Olivetti StarPress Europe. "Opera's high-quality titles augment our existing library of entertainment and educational titles by 60 percent."

Pietro Varvello, managing director, Opera Multimedia, added, "StarPress will provide key distribution, marketing and merchandising services to help position Opera Multimedia's history, art and travel CD-ROM products in the U.S. market."

Available on the IBM-compatible multimedia PC, the first three Opera titles to be distributed in the U.S. by StarPress include:

Tour Italia. The first title in the "Tourism" series and produced in collaboration with the Italian Touring Club, Tour Italia is a multimedia travel guide that whisks the user to over 240 of the most breathtaking locations in Italy. Enriched with photographs, video clips and local music, Tour Italia allows the user to explore lavish Italian palaces, squares, castles and fortresses, picturesque seas and coastlines, mountain ranges and landscapes while winding through the 20 featured Italian regions. Tour Italia is available in two languages (English and Italian) with a suggested retail price of $49.95.

Scientific American's Homo Sapiens. Co-developed with Le Scienze, the Italian edition of Scientific American, Homo Sapiens is the first multimedia title that reconstructs the paleolithic history of the evolution of humans, offering a vision of the evolution from primates to mankind. The journey begins millions of years ago when the first hominids started to build rudimentary tools for hunting and their posture took the upright position. Homo Sapiens provides the user with an in-depth look at: the physical evolution of the species; the culture of the first fabricated articles, including the discovery of fire and the development of technological instruments; the climatic characterisitcs that determined the geographical settlements and the illustrations of evolution through a geographical profile, to form a global vision of the evolution of mankind. Scientific American's Homo Sapiens is available in English with a suggested retail price of $49.95.

The Uffizi Museum of Florence. Admire over 400 masterpieces in this virtual reconstruction of the world's best known museum in Opera Multimedia's The Uffizi Museum of Florence. Developed with the editorial photographic institute Scala of Florence, the title is the first to be released in the "Virtual Museums" series. The Uffizi Museum of Florence features detailed visual and written presentations of each work; artist biographies; a glossary of more than 200 technical terms and an archive that contains hundreds of reproductions of paintings and sculptures conserved in places other than the Uffizi for a full understanding of important periods in an artist's career. Future titles in the "Virtual Museum" series will include interactive expeditions to other major international museums like the Prado, the Hermitage, the Louvre and the Vatican. The Uffizi Museum of Florence is available in two languages (English and Italian) with a suggested retail price of $49.95.

Headquartered in Milan, Italy, Opera Multimedia operates under the Olivetti Telemedia umbrella to publish quality multimedia titles on CD-ROMs. The company, founded in 1993, has a team of multidisciplinary experts working in close collaboration on the production and realization of creative new titles in the fields of education and entertainment. Opera Multimedia's titles are developed in cooperation with leading scholars, institutions and organizations such as the Consiglio Nazionale dell Ricerche, Italy's national research council; Le Scienze, the Italian edition of Scientific American; Touring Club Italiano; the World Wildlife Fund; Instituto Fotografico Editoriale Scala and Musee Oceanographique de Monaco.

Founded in 1993, StarPress Multimedia, Inc., develops, publishes, and distributes interactive multimedia titles on CD-ROM for children and adults. The company has teamed up with some of America's most respected brand names such as Sports Illustrated and World Book Encyclopedia to produce entertainment and educational titles with proven consumer appeal. StarPress shipped its first award-winning product, Sports Illustrated 1994 Multimedia Sports Almanac, in March, 1994, and has shipped an additional five CD-ROM titles, including Material World: A Global Family Portrait, in the past three months.