Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge 5.0 Now Shipping

Business Wire, March 20, 2001

Business Editors

MADISON, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 20, 2001

Special Web Site Pricing Now Available

Sonic Foundry(R) Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO), a leading developer of digital media and Internet software tools, products, and services, today announced that its Sound(R) Forge 5.0 digital audio editing system is now shipping to all distribution channels and is available for sale at www.sonicfoundry.com. Sound Forge 5.0 is available for $499.95 with a $99.95 upgrade for any pre-registered users of Sound Forge. Registered Sound Forge XP users can also upgrade for $249.95. Additionally, Sound Forge 5.0 is available through www.sonicfoundry.com for download at 30% off of the MSRP, and the box version of the software can be ordered from the Web site for 20% off the retail price.

Sound Forge 5.0 provides support for 24-bit/32-bit float/192 kHz audio files, Track-at-once CD burning, and CD Ripping. These features allow the user to produce high-quality audio CDs as well as the ability to transfer music to a hard drive with saving options such as RM, MP3, WAV, and WMA formats. The software includes dozens of editing features including: Cut, Paste, Move, Delete, Mute, Reverse, Fade, Crossfade, Trim, Normalize, Pan, Resample, Enhance, Insert Silence, and more. Sound Forge provides over 35 audio effects and processes with more than 200 presets.

Additionally, the new version includes 20 DirectX Audio Plug-Ins, featuring XFX(TM)1, XFX(TM)2 and XFX(TM)3, and Acoustic Mirror(TM), which can be used for acoustic simulation and microphone modeling. The suite of audio effects includes: Amplitude Modulation, Chorus, Delay/Echo, Distortion, Dynamics, Compression, Enveloping, Flange/Wah-Wah, Gapper/Snipper, Noise Gate, Pitch Bend/Shift, Reverb, and Vibrato; three Eqs--Graphic, Parametric, and Paragraphic and Time Compression/Expand. It also supports DirectX-compatible Plug-Ins from third party applications.

About Sonic Foundry

Founded in 1991, Sonic Foundry(R) is a leading developer of digital media and Internet software tools, products, and services. Sonic Foundry's award-winning products and services are used worldwide for multimedia and Internet applications, music, video, and broadcast solutions, and digital content creation. Sonic Foundry's Media Services Division is the pre-eminent supplier of digitization, management, and delivery solutions for audio and video content owners. Serving as the link between content and customers, the Company provides proven, comprehensive processes that enable content delivery to new and emerging distribution channels.

Certain statements contained in this news release regarding matters that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Because such forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, uncertainties pertaining to continued market acceptance for the Company's products, the Company's ability to succeed in capturing significant revenues from media services, the effect of new competitors in the Company's market, integration of acquired businesses and other risk factors identified from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.