Be, Inc. Unveils BeOS Release 4 at COMDEX Fall 98; Alternative Operating System Allows Users to Manipulate High-Bandwidth Digital Media

Business Wire, Nov 12, 1998

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 12, 1998--Be, Inc. today announced BeOS Release 4, an operating system designed for digital content creators who want to manipulate high bandwidth digital media, such as graphics, audio, and video, in real time on personal computer hardware.

The alternative operating system delivers breakthrough computing power to prosumers who are doing a variety of multimedia work from creating animated 3D models and mixing digital audio tracks to editing the latest digital video masterpiece. BeOS Release 4, designed to co-exist with other operating systems on the same PC, will debut in Be's booth at COMDEX (Sands Convention Center/Booth No. 7114) and ship to customers in early December 1998.

"BeOS is designed from the ground up for users who want to blend an assortment of audio, video and graphics data in real time with immediate feedback and control," said Jean-Louis Gassee, chairman and chief executive officer of Be, Inc.

"These prosumers range from the entrepreneur building a wedding video business to an aspiring rock band who wants to create their first CD. The BeOS delivers a powerful, but easy-to-use framework that brings media applications to life on standard off-the-shelf PCs."

Market Opportunity

From 1996 to 1997, worldwide PC/client operating environment shipments for the Mac OS and Unix declined 15.7% and 7.8%, respectively, according to market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC believes that there is an opportunity for BeOS to gain some of this lost market share, as both of these operating systems traditionally host some percentage of multimedia applications.

"Release 4 of BeOS is a major milestone in the maturity of BeOS as a product and for Be, Inc. as a company," said IDC Research Manager William Peterson.

"Be has improved operating system features in preparation for developers, ISVs, and OEM vendors to evaluate BeOS as an Intel-based operating system alternative to high-cost graphic workstations. The company has no intention of competing with Microsoft Windows. Rather, this release makes it easier for BeOS to live on the same machine as Windows 95, 98, and NT (Windows 2000).

"IDC believes that with the many new and advanced technical feature sets included in BeOS Release 4, Be Inc. has produced an operating system that is prepared to advance past development systems and onto end-user Intel-based systems in the multimedia market."

Key BeOS Release 4 Features

BeOS Release 4 incorporates several new features that further simplify the production and manipulation of high bandwidth digital media, including:

The Media Kit

The Media Kit enables users to easily specify complex series of operations to be performed on streaming media. For example, in a single step a user could capture video from an external device (such as a camcorder), decompress the video if necessary, perform filtering operations (such as changing the brightness or contrast of each frame), recompress the video stream and save it to his hard disk or to a separate external device.

The Media Kit also benefits developers, making it easier to develop high-performance, low-latency media applications such as video and audio editors that interoperate seamlessly with drivers, translators, filters and other software components developed by third parties.

Expanded Hardware Support

BeOS Release 4 offers significantly expanded support for hardware devices such as display adapters, sound cards, network interface cards, video capture boards, SCSI devices, and color printer drivers. -0-

--   Audio: SoundBlaster AWE64; Yamaha 715; Crystal 423x; Opti931;
     SonicVibes; Lucid

--   Video Capture: Intel; Hauppauge; Miro; Avermedia; IXMicro; US
     Robotics

--   Network: DEC (21040); Intel EtherExpress; NE2000 (ISA, PCI); 3Com
     (3C90x, 3C503)

--   SCSI: BusLogic; Adaptec; Symbios

-0-

Improved Windows Compatibility

The BeOS is designed to co-exist with Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT. Several new elements make it easy for customers to use the BeOS in tandem with Windows. These include: keyboard shortcuts that mimic their Windows counterparts, immediately allowing users to be productive; full support within the BeOS for the disk formats used by Windows 95 (FAT16) and Windows 98 (FAT32), allowing users to read to and write from Windows disks and partitions; and a client for Microsoft Networks (available free by download from Be's online store, BeDepot.com), enabling users to connect to, read from and write to Microsoft NT servers and individual Windows 95 and Windows 98 workstations.

Increased System Performance

The overall performance of BeOS Release 4 has improved by 25-30 percent. Users working with digital content will find their processing power further extended, allowing them to create more in less time. Playing two, 30 frames per second video streams while applying effects in real time without any hardware assistance is an easy task under the BeOS. The BeOS is a fully symmetric multiprocessing operating system, so users gain nearly 100 percent in increased performance as they move from a single to a dual processor system.