Be® Ships BeOS™ Release 3 For Intel® Pentium® Personal Computers

RELEASED MARCH 20, 1998

BE® SHIPS BEOS™ RELEASE 3 FOR INTEL® PENTIUM® PERSONAL COMPUTERS
Be Developer Conference Attendees Receive BeOS Release 3 Today

MENLO PARK, Calif. (March 20, 1998) -- Be, Inc. announces today the shipment of the Be Operating System Release 3, the first version to run on Intel Pentium-based personal computers. The BeOS can be purchased via Be's Internet web site (http://www.be.com/).

Simultaneous with this announcement, Be delivered retail copies of BeOS Release 3 to all attendees of today's Be Developer Conference in Santa Clara, California.

"With Release 3, we now run on both Intel and PowerPC® platforms and naturally extend the market for our developers. We believe there is value in running multiple windows of 30 frames per second video combined with a dozen or more CD quality audio tracks, all at the same time." said Jean-Louis Gassée, CEO of Be. "Just as Linux is the specialty OS for the Internet, the BeOS is a specialty OS for digital video and audio, designed to run alongside general purpose OSes like Windows 95 and the Mac OS."

Be delivered three major releases of the operating system over the past year. The first public commercial release (Preview Release 1) was shipped in July, 1997. Preview Release 2 was delivered in October, 1997, and only 8 months after the first release, Release 3 is now available to customers.

Since Preview Release 2, Be has passed these milestones:

• Three hundred new BeOS applications released.
• Over twenty new applications are bundled with the PowerPC version, bringing the total number of bundled applications to sixty.
• The number of registered Be developers jumped from 4,400 to 5,700.
• More than one million copies of the BeOS distributed.

Availability and Pricing

The BeOS Release 3 for Intel Pentium systems is available for purchase via the Be Internet web site http://www.be.com/. The PowerPC version of the BeOS will be ready on April 20th, 1998 and will be automatically shipped to customers who elect to receive it.

Pricing:

• $99.95 in the US ($69.95 introductory pricing for a limited time)
• FF700 (FF840.20 withVAT), in Europe/Africa/Eastern Europe (FF490 (FF590.94 with VAT) introductory pricing for a limited time)

BeOS Release 3 includes both Intel Pentium and PowerPC versions -- 2 CDs and one floppy disk, and a printed user's guide.

Customers who purchased PowerPC versions of the BeOS Preview Release 1 or Preview Release 2 will receive Release 3 (both Intel Pentium and PowerPC versions) for free when the PowerPC version is available.

Registered Be Developers will be sent BeOS Release 3 beginning March 23rd.

Be plans to announce additional channels of distribution for the BeOS, as well as country-specific channels, over the next few months. Information on distribution and customer support can be found on Be's web site.

New Hardware Support. Hardware supported by the BeOS now includes many Intel Pentium, Pentium with MMX technology[trademark], Pentium Pro, and Pentium II based personal computers. Continued support for most PowerPC® 603 or 604 Power Macintosh compatible computers will be delivered with the PowerPC version of the BeOS on April 20th, 1998. The BeBox Dual 603 personal computer is also supported.

Installation and Boot Management. The Intel Pentium version of the BeOS includes PartitionMagic® from PowerQuest® to allow users to dynamically partition their hard drives and ease the entire BeOS installation process. In addition, PowerQuest provides boot management utilities allowing users to run a number of installed operating systems. The PowerPC version of the BeOS continues to ship with built in boot management tools.

User Interface Improvements. The BeOS user interface is the same on all hardware platforms. User interface improvements include more powerful find options, intelligent handling of unknown documents, additional scripting support, improved window management, and increased video resolutions.

Extended Internet Support. Networking in the BeOS is based upon the Internet standard TCP/IP protocol. The BeOS ships with an integrated, DOJ-approvedSM Internet web browser and server allowing you to view and publish web pages from the moment of installation. The bundled web server has an improved user interface to allow for quick configuration and better access tracking.

System Wide Data Translation Services. The BeOS includes the Translation Kit that allows developers to easily support many standard data types such as graphics (e.g. JPEG, TIFF, BMP, GIF etc...) and video. This kit is an open API allowing developers to provide additional add-on translation services. Developer tools like these reduce the time to market for BeOS application development.

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.