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Autodesk to Acquire Media 100 Software Line

Press release from the issuing company

SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--Autodesk, Inc., (Nasdaq:ADSK) the world's leading design and digital content creation company, today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire the software product line from Media 100 (Nasdaq:MDEA), a leading provider of digital media products. With this acquisition, Autodesk's Discreet Division enhances its award-winning content creation product portfolio with Media 100's world-class streaming media software solutions -- allowing Discreet customers to create, distribute, re-purpose and publish media content for consumption via the Internet, corporate Intranets and IP-enabled devices such as cell phones and PDAs.      The asset purchase for $16 million cash is expected to close during Autodesk's third quarter and is anticipated to be non-dilutive to Autodesk's expected earnings for the current fiscal year.      The software acquisition forms the foundation of Autodesk's entry into streaming media for the corporate and institutional markets. Streaming delivers immediate playback of content over the Internet, without the need to download, and is fast becoming the distribution medium of choice for films and entertainment, advertising, corporate/investor communications, and distance learning and training.      "The Media 100 software fortifies our commitment to offer our Discreet customers a comprehensive suite of rich media solutions that address their needs from creation to distribution," said Paul Lypaczewski, general manager of Autodesk's Discreet division. "The advantages of streaming are particularly compelling in today's economic environment, as companies can improve productivity and customer communication with engaging, informational webcasts. The benefits of the full Discreet-Media 100 software product line will effectively align us to capitalize on this industry growth trend."      Software acquired from Media 100 includes the Cleaner(TM) family of products -- Cleaner 5, Cleaner EZ, Cleaner Live, Charger and SuperCharger -- and the editing and dynamic streaming media production software of CineStream, EventStream technology, EditDV, and IntroDV. Cleaner and its related products complement Discreet's entire family of content creation solutions, and is the industry's leading cross-platform (Macintosh and Windows) encoding software that delivers interactive streaming video and audio to websites -- such as live-event webcasting. CineStream, its predecessor EditDV, and IntroDV will provide Discreet with cross-platform streaming media production and non-linear DV editing technology. These new software products will reach new customers in the corporate, institutional and prosumer market segments.      Media 100, led by CEO John Molinari, will continue developing digital media systems, such as iFinish(TM) and Media 100(TM)i, as well as continuing support for its ICE family of effects acceleration solutions, and its MediaPress family of real-time MPEG-2 encoding solutions. Key development and support personnel from the software division of Media 100, currently based in its Los Gatos, CA office, will transition over to the Autodesk Discreet division.      "We are confident in handing off the successful streaming media software products to Discreet -- a natural choice to further develop and support streaming technology," said John Molinari, president and chief executive officer of Media 100. "The transaction allows Media 100 to focus on introducing next-generation capabilities in our digital media systems business."      The acquired software product lines will be sold and distributed by Discreet upon final completion of the acquisition and is expected to be fully branded under Discreet within the year 2001. For more information about this transaction or general corporate information visit Discreet at: www.discreet.com/streamingmedia. For customer support questions contact Discreet at: 800/434-5121 or Discreet Sales at 800/869-3504 or 514/393-1616.

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