FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tech Industry Trailblazers Form
Multimedia Applications Software Company: mFactory

Digital Pioneers Herald New Era in Multimedia Development
with Release of mTropolis

Burlingame, CA ... April 4, 1995. Two software industry entrepreneurs announced the recent formation of a new interactive multimedia applications software company whose family of products will be built around a breakthrough technology expected to set new standards in the industry for CD-ROM title creation.

Six years in the making, mFactory is the brainchild of former multimedia developer and Oracle Corporation collaborator Hamish Forsythe, and technology guru and founder of LSI Logic Inc., Norm Gudmundson. The result of this combustion of technology and multimedia development knowledge is an exciting new company with an innovative approach to developing multimedia software tools and frameworks. In forming mFactory, Forsythe and Gudmundson had a vision of giving developers a robust environment that would enable them to rapidly create and deploy high-performance, extremely sophisticated new media titles across multiple platforms, at significantly lower costs. This vision was realized with mTropolis, an interactive multimedia development system being launched today.

"As a former multimedia developer with a very demanding clientele, I was constantly frustrated by the limitations that multimedia authoring tools imposed on my company's ability to meet the growing market demand for more compelling titles that could be simultaneously delivered on multiple platforms at a reasonable cost," says mFactory president, Forsythe. "Our goal in introducing this technology is to help developers overcome these limitations and enable them to create better performing titles in a shorter time-frame, with fewer people and fewer delays, resulting in faster time-to-markets and better profit margins."

Based on his personal experience, Forsythe began to formulate some of the key concepts behind mFactory's "total product" philosophy: rigorously tested user interfaces that carefully combine ease of use with flexibility; a portfolio of features cleverly designed to facilitate collaboration between artists and programmers; tightly integrated and tested documentation; and responsive technical support.

Identifying a clear market opportunity, Forsythe and Gudmundson worked closely with customers to forge the core technology that would allow them to build a product line that addresses very specific developer needs. This single scaleable core technology, called mFusion, is based on a totally open architecture that in addition to providing superior cross-platform capabilities, can be readily extended to accomodate the rapidly changing needs of the new media industry. With this technology, mFactory hopes to establish the de facto industry standard --an easy to use, open multimedia system that is compatible with everything.

mFactory is well on its way to establishing itself as a market leader with the release of its first mFusion-based product, mTropolis. An integrated component-based multimedia authoring system geared to high-end commercial title developers, mTropolis will enable developers to realize significant productivity gains (up to 10 times more than with the current methodologies) and far lower development costs, while allowing them to meet growing market demand for sophisticated multi-platform products.

"The idea is to provide new media developers with all the benefits of full object-orientation and still achieve the uncompromised performance that until now, required hand-coding in C," says Norm Gudmundson, mFactory's Vice President of Engineering.

mTropolis provides a user-friendly authoring environment in which different tools can seamlessly co-exist both independently and interactively, regardless of where or how they were originated. This plug 'n' play functionality, united by a rigorously consistent drag and drop interface in which all media and logic components can be directly manipulated, will redefine the way interactive titles are developed and executed.

The object-oriented approach of the underlying mFusion technology makes the complex and involved "world building" that is part of any great title, a far more natural task. Developer productivity is also enhanced with a variety of unique design and project control tools, as well as a completely integrated de-bugger; as a title is constructed, it can be executed at full performance and interactively debugged within the authoring environment.

"mFactory is a company of experienced developers who have created a fresh approach to solving the programming needs of the new media market," says Yvonne Collins, mFactory's Vice President of Sales & Marketing. "With the release of mTropolis developers now have access to a simple solution that transcends the limitations of existing authoring tools and really nails down the problems that have been barriers to commercial success."

mFactory is a newly formed multimedia applications software developer located in Burlingame, Calif., just south of San Francisco's Multimedia Gulch. mFactory employs 30 people full-time, over half of whom have backgrounds in multimedia development. The management team consists of seasoned leaders in their respective fields, and the development team is an eclectic group, ranging from former Amiga game wizards to Microsoft Windows experts, who share many years of experience in crafting high-performance, rock-solid software.

The company's first commercial product, mTropolis, is one in a family of similar products that will be developed to serve different segments of the interactive multimedia title creation market. mFactory can be reached at 415-548-0600 (tel), 415-548-9249 (fax), info@mfactory.com (e-mail).

Draft Release 1995 Copyright mFactory