IC Ensemble Teams Up with Be to Support the Music Industry
Professional Audio Application Software Embedding Real-Time Operating System

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 19, 1999 - IC Ensemble and Be, Incorporated join forces to enable DVD grade audio production on ubiquitous PC platforms. IC Ensemble is working with Be to build driver software for the popular Envy24™ controller. Many innovative audio hardware vendors, such as Midiman, SeaSound, Sonorus and TerraTec, have adopted the Envy24 as their building block to rapidly furnish hardware specific code and to bypass the need to rewrite the low-level driver. Envy24 will afford users of forthcoming applications, from Arboretum, Emagic, Headspace, IK Multimedia, Seer Systems and Steinberg, great choices in pro-quality audio I/O.

"Hardware is only as good as software allows it to be. Our acclaimed Envy24 standard digital multi-track PCI controller performs at its maximum while running BeOS®, the media content creator's choice of platform. BeOS was built from the ground up, as was our Envy24 controller, to address the high-bandwidth performance demands of professional quality media streaming. By sharply focusing on this target, BeOS optimizes the performance for real-time operations without the need for exotic setups of specialized custom hardware and expensive gear," said Renato D'Orfani, director of marketing at IC Ensemble.

Audio streams have the highest priority in BeOS, a 'media friendly' operating system that easily scales for multi-processing environments. Additionally, when system capabilities are fully loaded a graceful degradation occurs, prioritizing the real-time applications over the non-critical ones.

"The BeOS drivers take full advantage of mixing and bussing in the Envy24, affording our users many great pro-audio solutions," says Tim Self, vice president of developer relations at Be, Incorporated.

"Midiman is designing the Envy24 controller into a wide range of digital audio products for both Apple and Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) based computer systems. BeOS has the ability to work seamlessly with either OS, and as such, is an ideal choice for our customers," says Tim Ryan, president of Midiman.

" Streaming media applications should be limited only by the capabilities of the hardware," says Tom Surace, senior software engineer at SeaSound. "And BeOS is a true, full-fledged, multimedia OS with a protected architecture. BeOS with drivers directly supporting the Envy24 controller creates a stable environment for DAW applications."

"Sonorus is committed to bringing production quality audio to the BeOS platform," says Marc Lindahl, president of Sonorus. "With our partner, IC Ensemble, we're able to extend that support across our entire product line."

" BeOS is the next step for professional audio in a PC environment because tightly coupling the application to the hardware design provides maximum performance," says Uli Gobbers, director of research & development at TerraTec. "We find the idea of a media OS designed especially for our customer base of highly creative people to be very appealing."

"The Envy24 product provides a complete development path for 24/96 digital multi-track audio implementations on a PC platform, including baseline software drivers supporting BeOS, Microsoft® Windows® 95/98, WindowsNT® and Windows2000 plus ASIO compliant drivers," says Steve Allen, director of sales at IC Ensemble.

Pricing and Availability

Envy24 sample devices are available immediately and production quantities are available in mid-Q2'99. Estimated pricing is $36.00 at 1000 piece quantities and available in a 128 PQFP. For additional information regarding the Envy24 product, potential customers should contact Steve Allen at 408-986-1200 x106 or steve@ICEnsemble.com.

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About IC Ensemble

IC Ensemble, Inc. is a privately held fabless semiconductor company in Silicon Valley which designs, develops and sells mixed-signal interface integrated circuits targeted at the PC, peripheral and consumer markets. The company was founded in August of 1997 and is located at 3970 Freedom Circle, Santa Clara, CA 95054.

About Be®

Be, Incorporated., 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 on both personal computers and Internet appliances. In 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.

Be and BeOS are registered trademarks of Be, Incorporated. Envy24 is a registered trademark of IC Ensemble. Other brand product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders. All rights reserved.

Windows, DirectSound and Microsoft® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Sound Blaster is a registered trademark of Creative Labs, Inc. All other trademarks belong to their respective companies.