IOWA CITY, IA - October 5th, 2004. Today MetaCommunications, Inc. announced a major upgrade to its Virtual Ticket production platform for printing, publishing and creative development. Scheduled to ship October 30th, Virtual Ticket 6.0 marks the introduction of a Mac OS X native client application to the product line with support for Apple Computer's "Panther" (10.3) version of the operating system. Virtual Ticket 6.0 also includes new features, including the ability to create custom SQL queries directly from within the product and enhancements to the built-in MetaScript scripting engine. "Virtual Ticket 6.0 has been engineered to run natively on Macintosh OS 9, OS X, and Windows platforms, covering the varying needs of our diverse customer base. We are very excited to see it's introduction and believe our customers will see tremendous benefits in the new feature set," says Robert T. Long, Executive Vice President of MetaCommunications. "Virtual Ticket has always had a powerful built-in search engine, but adding the custom SQL queries takes this to a new level, allowing users to create and save complex relational and contextual searches." Virtual Ticket 6.0 is a powerful integrated solution that enables organizations to centralize information, eliminate paper job tickets, manage production files, traffic and schedule jobs, notify and alert users to changes in production information, manage digital assets and automatically archive files. Used as a stand-alone system or seamlessly integrated with other management and enterprise software, Virtual Ticket is the only product available today that combines electronic job ticketing, workflow, digital asset management, and archiving in one scalable and customizable production platform. AVAILABILITY Virtual Ticket 6.0 is scheduled to be available October 30th, 2004 directly from MetaCommunications or through certified partners worldwide, with costs based on the number of concurrent users licensed. The Virtual Ticket 6.0 base package starts at $999 (U.S.). Additional concurrent user license packs are available separately, starting at $659 (U.S.) for a single-user license. Upgrades to Virtual Ticket 6.0 are available free of charge to existing customers with a valid Software Assurance & Support agreement.