CARLSBAD, Calif., September 23, 1992 -- A new multimedia software system
introduced today by MediaShare Corp. gives sales and marketing people a
logical and easy way to use volumes of complex product information -- from
traditional sales brochures and technical manuals to photographs and video
clips -- to woo and win customers.

Called the PRISM product information system, MediaShare's new software
electronically catalogues all company product information, regardless of
format, and lets sales and marketing people mix and match the information
in a way that is relevant to the target customer.

"First-generation sales force automation systems take the routine out of
the sales process by automating repetitive tasks, such as lead tracking,
time scheduling and account profiling," said Greg Bestick, MediaShare's
chief executive officer and president. "PRISM defines a second-generation
sales system that strikes to the heart of the sales process and makes
critical product information available when and where it is needed. It
helps salespeople learn about products and prepare for customer meetings,
plays an active role in presentation, and aids in preparing follow-up
reports and proposals."

Designed in cooperation with 3M (which also is one PRISM's first customers)
and Jostens, Inc., PRISM is based on a number of different computing
technologies, most notably multimedia and object-oriented programming.

"Multimedia is the hottest topic in the computer business, but few
companies have produced practical business applications," Bestick said.
"Our mission is to produce real-life applications to improve human and
corporate performance."

Sales and marketing people can use PRISM to access, understand, manage and
communicate any combination of text, images, sound, video or any other
data stored in the system. The system applies universally to the sales and
marketing process, from sales training to presentation development to
proposal preparation.

PRISM supports industry-standard IBM-compatible personal computers, from
notebooks and laptops for field use to high-end desktop systems. It
operates under Microsoft Windows and complies with well-defined Multimedia
PC (MPC) standards.

Designed for Fortune 1000 Companies

PRISM's primary application will be in Fortune 1000 companies that have
large diverse product lines, and equally diverse marketing support
materials, such as printed brochures, corporate videos and audio
testimonials. For example, 3M is challenged with supporting 60,000 product
families in 52 operating units. Other companies are using PRISM to ensure
a uniform quality of presentations and proposals from their agents and
distributors.

The process involves three steps. First, MediaShare product information
engineers work with a company to gather existing corporate, sales and
marketing materials that will be used in the application. Second, they
organize, classify and define the relationships between the materials and
build a "relationship structure" in the system, which is tailored to the
specific company's needs. Third, the media is converted from their
original form -- print, audio, visual and computer files -- into a common
digital format, and filed in PRISM's ProductBase according to the rules
established in the relationship structure.

What PRISM Can Do

The ProductBase engine is a sophisticated product information structure
containing an object-oriented database and software engine that manages
the multimedia product information. Atop the ProductBase is the
Relationship Layer, a suite of development tools and templates used to
update and browse connections among objects within the ProductBase.

PRISM has four applications modules that use the ProductBase and
Relationship Layer to view, organize and present product information. The
modules are:

-- Explore, which encourages "freeform" exploration and searches of the
product information using natural language queries. It also can tag items
of interest for use in other applications;

-- Compare, which presents product information in a manner that allows
users to easily compare and contrast product features, functions and
capabilities;

-- Present, which enables users to combine product data, sales materials
and customer information in the ProductBase into an impressive variety of
customized presentations that take full advantage of PRISM's interactive
and multimedia capabilities; and

-- Propose, which creates dynamic proposals and other printed documents,
such as catalogues and data sheets, by combining pre-designed
"boilerplate" materials with information drawn from product information
and other application modules.

PRISM includes an open Application Programming Interface (API) that allows
customers to develop their own modules for custom applications and usages.
It will also support the Object Link Embedding (OLE) and Dynamic Document
Exchange (l standards for linking product information to other
applications.

Pricing and Availability

PRISM installations begin at about $60,000, which includes software
licenses, development of the first environment and training of an in-house
development team. After developing the initial ProductBase, MediaShare
expects that most companies will rely on in-house developers to add to the
ProductBase. However, these services are available directly from
MediaShare.

MediaShare Corp. was formed in 1990 to develop interactive multimedia
technology to improve human and corporate performance. The Carlsbad,
Calif. company provides hardware and software solutions and support
services for practical multimedia applications.

MediaShare
2035 Corte del Nogal, Suite 200, Carlsbad, CA 92009
619-931-7171

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