T9 Text Input Recognized as Best Consumer Product of the Year by the Washington Software Alliance

Business Wire, Feb 18, 2000

Business Editors/Technology Writers

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 18, 2000

Tegic Communications, a wholly owned subsidiary of America Online, Inc. (NYSE:AOL), announced today that its flagship product, T9(R) Text Input, received the Washington Software Alliance (WSA) Industry Achievement Awards Best Consumer Product of the Year award.

The honor was presented last night at the fifth annual WSA Industry Achievement Awards ceremony held in Seattle. T9 Text Input makes it easier for users of mobile phones and other wireless devices to quickly and easily enter text and take full advantage of the device's text-based features.

&uot;T9 Text Input is truly a revolutionary product. By enabling new text-based wireless applications, T9 Text Input is changing the way people communicate in our increasingly wireless world,&uot; said Bob Hart, president and general manager of Tegic Communications. &uot;We are honored to be recognized by our peers in the Washington software industry. This award is a well-deserved acknowledgement to the energy, effort, innovation and quality of the Tegic Communications team.&uot;

T9 Text Input software has become the global standard for easy text entry on wireless devices. More than 40 different consumer electronics devices including, mobile phones, personal digital assistants and MP3 devices, have integrated T9 Text Input software. In addition, wireless phone manufacturers who are responsible for more than 90 percent of the worldwide handset production have licensed T9 software.

According to Hart, over the next two to three years, hundreds of millions of wireless phones will ship with T9 Text Input as a key feature.

About T9 Text Input

Although each key on a telephone keypad can be interpreted in multiple ways -- a single press on the &uot;5&uot; key could be &uot;J,&uot; &uot;K,&uot; or &uot;L&uot;-T9 Text Input uses an internal database to automatically scan possible variations to determine the correct word. By allowing users to enter words by pressing just one key press per letter, T9 Text Input software greatly reduces the time and keystrokes required to enter text on a device with a limited keypad. For example, entering the word &uot;call&uot; into a mobile phone will take just four key presses with T9 Text Input rather than ten key presses required by conventional &uot;multi-tap&uot; text entry.

The software is available and in use in every major European and Asian language including Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean (Hangul), Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. Additional language support is continuously expanding.

About Tegic Communications

Tegic Communications was founded in 1995 to develop and market communication technologies for the telecommunications and computing industries and was acquired by America Online, Inc. (NYSE:AOL) in December 1999. Tegic Communications is headquartered in Seattle and has offices in Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Tegic's flagship product is T9 Text Input, the leading alphabet-based and Chinese and Japanese character-based text input software. T9 Text Input technology has been licensed to major consumer electronics and communications equipment manufacturers representing more than 90 percent of annual wireless phone production worldwide.

Current licensees of T9 Text Input software include Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Benefon, Bosch, Denso, Fujitsu, LG Information &Communications, Maxon, Memory Corporation, Mitsubishi, NEC, NeoPoint, Optimay, Panasonic, Philips, Qualcomm, Sagem, Samsung, Sanyo, Siemens, Sony, Telit and Voxson. The company has worldwide patents, both issued and pending, on T9 Text Input technology.

For more information about Tegic Communications or T9 Text Input, call 206/343-7001, send e-mail to info@tegic.com, or visit the Company's Web site at www.tegic.com.

Tegic is a trademark and T9 is a registered trademark of Tegic Communications. All other trademarks or registered trademarks belong to their respective holders.