QNX Software Systems Licenses Font Fusion From Bitstream

Business Wire, March 8, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 8, 2000

-Font Fusion Will be Part of the Photon MicroGUI(r), QNX's

Award-Winning, Windowing System for Embedded Devices-

Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ:BITS) and QNX Software Systems Ltd. announced today that QNX has licensed Font Fusion(tm), Bitstream's next generation font rasterizing engine. Font Fusion is the convergence of Bitstream's T2K(R) and TrueDoc(R) technology in an advanced, object-oriented architecture. QNX will implement Font Fusion as part of Photon microGUI, a high-performance, full-featured windowing system for memory-constrained environments.

Based on the robust architecture of the QNX realtime OS, Photon allows developers to create media-rich applications for even the smallest products, such as Internet appliances, consumer electronics, and hand-held medical instruments. Font Fusion will enable Photon-powered devices to display high-quality text without impacting Photon's performance in a memory-constrained environment.

Font Fusion provides developers with full font fidelity and high-quality typographic output at any resolution on any device, while maintaining the integrity of the original character shapes. In addition, Font Fusion performs well in memory-constrained environments. For example, a complete traditional Chinese TrueType font with over 13,000 characters can occupy as much as 8MB. With Font Fusion, the same font occupies less than 0.5MB.

Font Fusion is designed for operating systems, software applications, Web applications, low-resolution screen devices, multimedia servers, high-definition television screens (HDTVs), set-top boxes, continuous tone printers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other embedded systems and Internet appliances.

"Font Fusion complements Photon well with its speed, ease-of-use, and high performance under memory constraints," said Linda Campbell, vice president of strategic alliances at QNX. "We can now offer an optimized solution for high-quality text that is critical to our embedded market. Moreover, we can take advantage of Font Fusion's stroke-based handling of Asian characters, as our own customers prepare for growth in the Pacific Rim. "

"The innovation and flexibility of Font Fusion demonstrates why Bitstream has long-standing technology partners like QNX," said Anna Chagnon, executive vice president of Bitstream. "The recent addition of new stroke-based Chinese fonts to Font Fusion will in turn open even more opportunities with developers of a wide range of information appliances."

About Bitstream, the Internet Font Company

Bitstream Inc. (Nasdaq:BITS), headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a leading developer of type technology, digital typefaces, and type customization services for the graphics communications industry. Bitstream licenses its WebFont(tm) and Font Fusion(tm) font portability and rendering technology to hundreds of industry-leading Internet, Web, and publishing software applications developers, as well as to manufacturers of computers, printers, set-top boxes, and other devices. Bitstream has been awarded several patents that cover aspects of creating subsetted fonts, managing and rendering portable font objects, and using portable fonts for Web publishing. Bitstream also offers on-demand marketing software through its wholly owned subsidiary, Pageflex Inc. For more information on Bitstream and its products, visit the company on the World Wide Web at www.bitstream.com.

About QNX

Founded in 1980, QNX Software Systems is the industry leader in realtime, microkernel OS technology. The company has established a strong customer base in a variety of industries, including consumer electronics, telecommunications, medical instrumentation, process control, transportation, point-of-sale, and telephony. QNX products are distributed in over 100 countries worldwide.

Bitstream is a registered trademark, and Font Fusion and Web Fonts are trademarks of Bitstream Inc. T2K is a registered trademark of Type Solutions, Inc., a Bitstream Company. Photon microGUI is a registered trademark of QNX Software Systems. Other technologies and brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.