May 8, 2002 - VANCOUVER – Skinny Technologies Inc., developer of the new SkinnyScript file reduction technology, reports that a three-day conference held last month in Vancouver greatly advanced the company’s key revenue models and industry alliances. As a result, the company signed a letter of intent with Supreme Graphics of Vancouver that is expected to generate revenue within the North American Pre Press Market over the next 12 months. The "SkinnyFest 2002" conference brought together Skinny Technologies’ partners in the prepress, image portal, digital imaging and publishing sectors and provided a forum to explore avenues for deploying SkinnyScript encoding technology. Skinny Technologies president Daniel C. Walters described the conference as "an open event" designed to generate dialogue and ideas. "We deliberately set the meetings with little structure and a loose agenda," said Walters. "As a result, we dramatically moved forward on a number of fronts." Presenting at the conference, along with host Skinny Technologies were, Where?Media of St. John, Newfoundland, Interimaging Inc. of Vancouver and MediaHi Inc. of Honolulu. Supreme Graphics, with offices in Vancouver and Seattle, attended as an active participant and subsequently entered into negotiations with Skinny management. Through a production network of companies, Supreme Graphics provides prepress, digital photography, digital asset management, commercial sheetfed printing and interactive database solutions to clients across North America. Among its many products and services, the company specializes in the production of magazines, catalogues and annual reports, but it also produces a significant amount of carton-based packaging. Supreme Interactive produces database-driven websites for some of North America’s leading corporations. Along with the use of a SkinnyServer Prepress Workflow solution, Supreme Graphics is providing a facility for joint research and cultivation of new markets for both Supreme and Skinny products. It also offers a critical revenue model that will contribute to market expansion. "We have set the stage for many more similar agreements and revenue streams," said Mr. Walters. "Our shareholders are witnessing the launch of Skinny’s long-term growth strategy." Michael Kelly, Skinny’s executive vice president of business development, added: "Over the last several months, Skinny Technologies has aligned itself with key players in the prepress industry. These alliances are establishing a marketing and services platform that will allow an immediate entry into the prepress market within North America." In addition to the Supreme agreement, the SkinnyFest conference generated valuable interaction as presenters demonstrated their applications of Skinny’s top products. Ultimate Technographics, a leading supplier of prepress hardware and software, has incorporated SkinnyScript technology into a suite of prepress products sold largely in Europe and Asia. The market launch of its new SkinnyServer Prepress Workflow Solution was May 1. Interimaging is a leading supplier of digital photographic services and visual effects aimed largely at the North American movie production industry. Interimaging is also exploring other opportunities for Skinny encoding such as the rapidly expanding virtual reality industry. MediaHi is Hawaii’s largest custom publisher. The company will be utilizing SkinnyPDF files as part of its prepress workflow. MediaHi publishes high-end color brochures and booklets for tourism clients in Hawaii. Mr. Walters noted that the mix of Ultimate, Where?Media, Interimaging and MediaHi generated a number of ideas for new markets. "We’re uncovering diversified vertical applications for various encoder formulas that we’d never considered," said Walters. "The market for our technology seems unlimited, especially for digital acquisition devices. This includes the huge market for digital cameras. We’re very encouraged. "More importantly," Kelly added, "the interaction amongst this group allowed us to solidify three primary revenue models: prepress, ASP (application service providers) and distribution. With what we learned in Vancouver, and particularly the Supreme agreement, we’ll now take on the U.S. armed with critical knowledge of the most receptive markets and the best revenue structures." Kelly described the distribution model, whereby Skinny licenses its technology to leading hardware and software distributors, as a key element of Skinny’s long-term growth strategy. "The distribution model is important because it allows us to sell our products through established marketing and distribution networks without incurring the associated overhead." Mr. Kelly added that additional relationships from the SkinnyFest conference should be evident soon. "We believe our ongoing work with these partners will generate exciting developments in the very near future." In addition to the Supreme Graphics agreement, Skinny has also entered into negotiations with XtraBold Italics Inc. of Vancouver and New York to supply Skinny with cross-marketing opportunities. Mr. Kelly adds "These opportunities are firmly based in the United States. They’ll open up new vertical markets within our business plan." Vancouver-based Skinny Technologies has developed a suite of image management solutions based on SkinnyScript, a revolutionary technology that reduces the size of digital graphic files up to 100 times with no loss of quality. This technology breakthrough enables any enterprise that handles, stores or transfers large image files to significantly reduce related costs. Skinny Technologies is deploying the Skinny family of products and services to the printing, publishing, advertising and graphic design industries.