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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FLUITION 1.2 NOW AVAILABLE

-- 2 New Utilities Offered With Fluition Production Edition --

TORONTO, ON - April 14, 2000 - Confluent Technologies Inc. releases Fluition 1.2, an upgrade to the now popular SMIL authoring tool. Fluition is a professional-level software program and the only one of its kind available for the Macintosh platform. Along with improved functionality and added feature sets for Fluition, Confluent Technologies has released Fluition Production Edition, which offers two new separate utility programs, SeriesProducer and ChannelBuilder.

Through Fluition and the power of SMIL, Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, developers now have the ability to incorporate and synchronize video, audio, text, Macromedia Shockwave Flash files, RealNetworks files and others into a unique and interactive presentation. Fluition allows the assembly of a multitude of file formats into SMIL presentations that can be streamed on the Internet using SMIL compatible players such as RealNetworks Inc.'s RealPlayer G2.

"HTML was the delivery language for the static text based World Wide Web. SMIL is the programming language for streaming rich-media across the Internet – and with Fluition, we have made this technology accessible to everyone" says Steven Dryall, President, Confluent Technologies Inc. "SMIL not only enables authors a full range of possibilities as to what will be presented, it also allows you to synchronize when it will be presented within a streaming presentation."

SeriesProducer and ChannelBuilder are two new utilities now offered in conjunction with the release of Fluition Production Edition. SeriesProducer and ChannelBuilder allow for the easy creation of complex media presentations that can be managed more efficiently with Fluition. "SeriesProducer and ChannelBuilder take care of the tedious tasks involved in creating advanced presentations such as video libraries and episodic rich media," says Dryall. "These two utilities will further simplify the experience with Fluition and SMIL and provide a dynamic production environment to create presentations."

At present, creating interactive streaming presentations works best with RealNetworks Inc.'s RealPlayer G2 due to its advanced SMIL compatibility. This compatibility ensures the widest possible installed viewer base for presentations created with Fluition. Apple Computer Inc. announced SMIL compatibility in conjunction with the release of QuickTime 4.1 at Macworld Expo 2000 in January, and QuickTime 4.1.2 now improves on the functionality with SMIL. The new Microsoft 2000 Windows Server Edition has also recognized SMIL as a language with enormous potential. "SMIL exploded into the development community at the beginning of this year. As advances in data throughput and access to high speed lead us towards a ubiquitous broadband community the opportunities for SMIL and the Fluition suite of products are endless," Rob Simon, Vice President of Confluent Technologies Inc.

SMIL is a specification of the World Wide Web Consortium. The programming language, which is now in the second stage of development, was developed by representatives of such companies as Lucent, Microsoft, Netscape, Philips, and RealNetworks, in conjunction with such research concerns as Columbia University, CWI, and INRIA (for more information visit www.w3.org).

Fluition and Fluition Production Edition are now available across North America through the PowerXchange (www.thepowerxchange.com) and off the shelves at Toronto area CompuSmart stores. Fluition Non-Commercial Edition can still be downloaded from www.confluenttechnologies.com as well as other repositories on the Internet. Fluition was recently featured on the Rogers Home Weekend Ware on-line software review program where Fluition 1.0 was declared "a nice program, potentially a classic to be," by Eric Elia, Technology Editor for Weekend Ware.

Confluent Technologies will be a full exhibitor at the Real Conference 2000 in San Jose at the end of May of this year. Confluent Technologies will publicly debut Fluition Production Edition and will unveil some exciting news concerning the Windows release of Fluition.

Confluent Technologies Inc., a privately held Toronto-based software company, envisions the potential audience for streaming presentations as immense, and continuing to grow at an exponential rate. The advancement of streaming media technologies and the improvement of data connection speeds continue to evolve the Internet in to the most sophisticated multimedia delivery platform in history. To learn more about Confluent Technologies Inc., SMIL and Fluition visit: www.confluenttechnologies.com.

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For more information contact:

Steven Dryall (sdryall@electricleisureland.com)

Confluent Technologies Inc (416) 925-5325

Fluition is a trademark of Confluent Technologies Inc. SeriesProducer and ChannelBuilder are property of Confluent Technologies Inc.

Macromedia and Flash are registered trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. www.macromedia.com

RealNetworks and RealPlayer G2 are trademarks of RealNetworks Inc. www.real.com

Apple and QuickTime are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. www.apple.com

Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation www.msn.com

Rogers and @Home are trademarks of Rogers Communications Inc. www.rogers.com


© Confluent Technologies Inc. 1999 - 2001
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