Alias\Wavefront Announces Plans to Bring Maya to Macintosh; New Apple Mac OS X Provides Powerful Platform to Support Maya 3

Business Wire, May 15, 2000

Business Editors, Technology Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2000

Alias\Wavefront(TM), an SGI (NYSE:SGI) company, today announced their intent to bring Maya(R), the award-winning 3D animation and visual effects software for film, broadcast, video and game development, to the Apple(R) Mac(R) OS X platform.

Alias\Wavefront today previewed Maya for Max OS X at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. This announcement underscores both companies' focus on the creative community, and their commitment to deliver powerful solutions that innovate and inspire.

Maya delivers all the tools and features that professional digital content creators need to produce world-class animation and visual effects. Currently available on Windows NT(R) and SGI(R) IRIX(R) workstations, the addition of Mac OS X validates the power of the new Apple operating system to support the most advanced 3D graphics application available today.

"Alias\Wavefront received overwhelming requests from the Macintosh community to make our software available for the Mac," said Richard Kerris, Director of Maya Technology at Alias\Wavefront. "We are very pleased to respond to this customer demand today by announcing the development of Maya for Mac OS X. With the G4, Apple is delivering a very impressive, powerful graphics platform, which provides an excellent fit for our world-leading Maya 3D technology. Together, Maya on Macintosh will give Mac artists and animators an unbeatable combination of creative freedom, performance and productivity."

"We couldn't be happier that Alias\Wavefront is bringing Maya to the Mac," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Maya for Mac OS X will be the premiere 3D application on the Mac."

Maya's technology has created some of the world's most stunning visual effects and character animation. David Dozoretz, JAK Films' PreVisualization/Effects Supervisor, "Star Wars: Episode I" and "Episode II" explained, "Now that we have Maya, we will be able to drastically cut the time it takes to do pre-visualization shots. With only a half-hour of training on Maya, our lead artist needed only five minutes to redo a shot that had previously taken him half a day. This speaks volumes. And the introduction of Maya for Mac OS X has us even more excited, especially when combined with the rendering power of Silicon Graphics servers."

Mac OS X is a completely new implementation of the Macintosh operating system, featuring state of the art technology throughout, including an entirely new user interface called "Aqua." Mac OS X is designed to make computing even easier for consumers, while simultaneously extending the functionality for professional users.

Pricing and Availability

Maya Complete for Mac OS X will be released in early 2001. Details on pricing and availability will be announced prior to shipping. Alias\Wavefront will keep Mac users up to date on developments as they progress at www.aliaswavefront.com.

About Alias\Wavefront

Alias\Wavefront provides artists with open workflow solutions for creative advantage. As the world's leading innovator of 2D and 3D graphics technology, Alias\Wavefront develops software for the film and video, games, interactive media, industrial design, and visualization markets.

Alias\Wavefront's film and video customers include Blue Sky, Cinesite, CNN, Digital Domain, Dream Quest Images, Industrial Light & Magic, Pacific Data Images (PDI), Pixar, Sony Pictures Imageworks, The Walt Disney Company, and Warner Feature Animation.

Games customers include Acclaim Entertainment, Core Design, Electronic Arts, Factor 5, Kodiak Interactive, Lucas Arts Entertainment Company, Midway Games, Naughty Dog, Nihilistic, Nintendo, Radical Entertainment, Rare Ltd., Relic Entertainment, Retro Studios, Sega, Single Trac, Sony Computer Entertainment, Square, Timeline Studios, Valkyrie Studios, Verant Interactive and Westwood Studios.

Alias\Wavefront is a wholly owned, independent software company of SGI with headquarters in Toronto and technical centers in Seattle and Santa Barbara. Please visit the Alias\Wavefront Web site at www.aliaswavefront.com or call 800/447-2542 in North America. Readers in Europe can call 800 4125 4125 or 800 791 174 in Italy; 353 1 890 2244 in the Middle East and Africa; 8 1 3 3470 8282 in Asia-Pacific; and 525 203 0030 in Latin America for the nearest sales office or authorized reseller in their area.

Alias\Wavefront and the Alias\Wavefront logo are trademarks of Alias\Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited. Silicon Graphics and IRIX are registered trademarks and SGI is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. Maya is a registered trademark and the Maya logo and Maya is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc., exclusively used by Alias\Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited. Windows NT is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac OS and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. All other products or companies mentioned are trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Alias\Wavefront, 210 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5A 1J7, Tel: 416/362-9181, FAX: 416/369-6140.