PRESS RELEASE OCT 15th 2000

A new multimedia software authoring platform, set for launch in November 2000 at the Digital Media World exhibition (Olympia, 14-16th November , will at a stroke remove the technical barriers that until now have slowed and overcomplicated the creative process for professionals, and have intimidated new multimedia users.
Xenturi TM from AuthorCo Ltd is designed as open platform, so outside individuals and companies - users and software developers alike - will be able to write their own plug-ins with the Xenturi TM software developers' kit (SDK), creating a truly worldwide development community.
According to AuthorCo managing director Dr Nick Stedman, "This open platform approach will rapidly make Xenturi TM the world's most complete and wide-ranging multimedia authoring tool with the potential for limitless numbers of plug-ins, making available vast numbers of new features and interfaces with other systems. Users will be able to buy exactly the new features they need when they need them, easily and inexpensively. Upgrades will be history!".
Based on a powerful but extremely compact core engine, Xenturi TM is being launched as a fully authoring tool, bundled with a working set of plug-ins which can then be expanded for each individual's requirements. The CD-ROM will be users' means of storing and distributing their presentation, but DVD and Internet plug-ins will be released within a few weeks.
And according to Dr Stedman, " Within a very short time, even multimedia 'virgins' can produce full-screen , TV quality movies and presentations, with control over multiple videos and images on a single screen. Professional users, meanwhile, will find that Xenturi's intuitive and transparent nature will enable them very rapidly and easily to create complex and intricate images and effects. So Xenturi TM will greatly enhance a creative team's productivity."
Dr Stedman believes, in fact that Xenturi TM combines the advanced functionality of current professional authoring programs ( which are expensive and very hard to use) with the ease and cost advantages of low-end products, which in turn suffer from limited functionality. "We're breaking the 20th century notion that clever software must be difficult to learn and use," he says.
The advanced technology that restricts the size of the core engine also means Xenturi TM can run on low specification PCs (133MHz). Says Dr Stedman, "None of the current offerings on the market enable high-quality presentations on low-spec hardware, and with them you get functionality you're given, not necessarily what you want. Our plug-in route also means that hard disc get cluttered with software you'll never use. And because the presentations, games and movies made using Xenturi TM can be played direct from CD-ROM without being loaded on to a hard drive, this makes Xenruri TM ideal for low cost, easily distributed material for advertising, training and entertainment."
The initial Xenturi TM package will be available as a boxed set of CD-ROMs and plug-ins will be downloadable from the website-(http://www.xenturi.com)

For further information , please call Dr Nick Stedman on (44) 0117- 905 5021

or David Wilford on (44) 07968- 025012