Press Release

September 26, 2000

OTTAWA, Canada - 26 September 2000: Espial, the market leader in infrastructure software for the Pervasive Internet, today announced the availability of its third generation of Espial Architect, a rapid application development environment for Internet Appliances. This new version removes time consuming steps of the developers process and enables OEM’s to distribute free developer tool kits for their smart devices. This new version has received rave comments from the growing smart device developer community.

"Architect is a unique development environment, that has changed the way I develop GUI's." Commented devicetop.com developer Gene Myers. "While not as visual as some of the big bloated IDE's, it makes very clever use of the Java layout managers. Anyone that has used Java's layout managers can tell you that creating sophisticated GUI designs can be a real headache. Architect, along with the Espresso API, make designing complicated GUI's fast and a pleasure. I quickly realized that the designers of Java had intended their layout managers to work this simply. Be warned though, working with Architect might seem a bit foreign at first, but it highly addictive! And you just might change the way you design GUI's too."

"Vendors need to be able to offer customers everything the developer needs to hit the ground running and focus on his or her own value add," stated Jaison Dolvane, President and CEO at Espial. "With the short product life cycles in the Internet appliance world, it is not enough to just provide good technology. Espial understands this fundamental business concept and is committed to providing all the core technologies and tools that our customers need to bring a customized and branded information appliance to the Pervasive Internet. This means streamlining the development cycle and leveraging the power of the Java developer community at devicetop.com.

"As a developer, it is important that the tools that I use are straight forward in design, easy to use, and robust enough to do things that the original designers of the tool may not have anticipated", stated Richard Kunkel, a developer from Espial’s devicetop.com community. "In my opinion, Architect 3.0 fulfills all of my requirements. It is easy to use, powerful, and extremely robust. I have several development products on my system, but Architect 3.0 is the one I turn to most often. Thanks for creating it!"

Enable Developers, Enable Device Services "Emerging markets such as the Internet appliance space offer opportunities to new entrants and existing developers. Offering these developers a pre-integrated, innovative, and complete software environment provides tremendous value in their efforts to develop smart, connected devices. The Professional Edition also includes service developer edition and those OEMs that purchase Architect can distribute this edition free of charge to their entire developer community. Espial has also launched the Developer Edition. This edition can be found on www.devicetop.com and has been made available to the developer community and the OEM community. By making Espial Architect 3.0 Developers Edition available to the OEM community they can give it to their developers as a tool to build applications for their platforms. This initiative will enable more applications to be developed on smart devices using the Architect environment."

"Espial has also launched a contest on www.devicetop.com, winner receiving a BMW Z3 Roadster for the best DeviceTop application uploaded to the site. The Espial Architect 3.0 Developers Edition toolkit is available for free on this site for the development of those winning applications.

Pricing and Availability

Espial Architect 3.0 Professional Edition is currently shipping. Free evaluation copies of Architect 3.0 are available for download at the Espial web site at http://www.espial.com. As well, Espial Architect 3.0 Developer Edition is available for free at www.devicetop.com; the first Internet portal dedicated to Java ™ technology developers of Web content and application services for Internet smart appliances. For further information or immediate evaluation copies, please contact your sales representative at sales@espial.com or call +1.972.980.7195. In Europe, please email saleseurope@espial.com or call +44 1793 698047.

The Pervasive Internet

Espial believes that the success of the Pervasive Internet (an Internet available to billions of users who access highly personalized information through a variety of smart devices) depends on the presence of three major critical elements. These three critical elements include the wide availability of smart devices, service provider infrastructure to manage devices, and large develop or service creator communities focused on creating services for smart devices. Espial is committed to working with its partners and customers to put in place these various elements of the pervasive computing infrastructure.

For additional information, please contact:

Angie Lynch Director of Corporate Communications, Espial 613.230.4770 x1110 (Direct) 613.799.9432 (Mobile) alynch@espial.com