UMAX And Be Announce Broad BeOS Bundling On
UMAX Power Mac Compatibles In North America

RELEASED JANUARY 6, 1998

UMAX AND BE ANNOUNCE BROAD BEOS BUNDLING ON
UMAX POWER MAC COMPATIBLES IN NORTH AMERICA

MENLO PARK, Calif. (January 6, 1998) -- Today UMAX Computer Corporation and Be, Inc. announced that the BeOS for Power Mac would be bundled with all new Power Mac compatible machines from UMAX in North America, starting with the recently introduced J700/233 and just announced J710/200 expected in February 1998. UMAX machines span a wide range of configurations, processor speed and prices, attractive to users in the home, in education and in high-end graphics and multimedia design applications.

"We've had a very strong response to our market trials of bundling the BeOS on some of our high-end machines," said Peter Mehring, General Manager of UMAX Computer Corporation. "With the ever-growing number of BeOS applications aimed at home and professional users, and the future potential they hold, we're delighted to be able to offer the BeOS bundled with all our machines."

"The BeOS is becoming increasingly attractive to users, as well as professional application developers," said Jean-Louis Gassée, President and CEO of Be, Inc. "We've been impressed with the performance and value of the UMAX range of products and welcome the opportunity to strengthen our relationship with the company in this way. Also, it has not escaped our attention that UMAX manufactures and sells a broad range of attractive Pentium-based PCs, including some really juicy multiprocessor configurations. In fact, we've been using UMAX PCs to develop the Intel processor version of the BeOS and look forward to further collaboration with UMAX in this area."

Current and forthcoming releases of the BeOS for Power Mac will be included with all newly announced UMAX Power Mac compatible machines beginning in February 1998. Registered BeOS developers who buy an S900/200 will also be eligible for a free secondary processor from UMAX for a limited time. Other offers and information to support BeOS developers on hardware from UMAX will be forthcoming (for more information, please see the UMAX website at http://www.umax.com/).

The BeOS for Power Mac and BeOS for Intel will be demonstrated publicly at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, January 6-9, 1998. The products will be shown running on UMAX Power Mac compatibles and Pentium-based PCs in the Be booth (#1847, South Hall) and UMAX booth (#1017, South Hall). The BeOS for Power Mac is shipping now, with the first public release of the BeOS for Intel scheduled for Q1 1998.

About UMAX

UMAX Computer Corporation and UMAX Technologies are California subsidiaries of UMAX Data Systems, a publicly held Taiwanese company. The UMAX family of companies is a technology leader in the design and manufacturing of a full line of imaging and computer products. The company maintains its leadership position in the imaging market with a broad line of desktop scanners for the PC, Macintosh, and UNIX platforms. Complementing its scanner technology, UMAX also produces digital cameras and multimedia devices for the capture and manipulation of video images. In addition, UMAX designs and markets PC and NT workstations, laptop computers, and Macintosh compatible systems based on the PowerPC chip architecture. All products are marketed through retail, mail order, regional and national distributors. UMAX also sells its products direct to OEMs.

For sales information and technical support, visit the UMAX home page on the Web at http://www.umax.com/, or contact UMAX at (800) 232-UMAX for Macintosh products and (510) 651-4000 or (800) 562-0311 for all other products.

About Be

Be, Inc., founded in 1990 by Jean-Louis Gassée, is a software company focusing on building new foundations for the next generation of digital content and media design tools. With a team of industry-leading engineers and business executives in the United States and Europe, the company is dedicated to removing the limitations of existing computer architectures and delivering a new level of price performance.

In July 1997, Be published the first public release of the Be Operating System (BeOS), the core product of this strategy. Additional information on Be and the BeOS is available online at http://www.be.com/. Be, Inc. is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.