Macromedia Ships Flash 3

Major Upgrade of the Internet's Leading Tool for Vector Graphics and Animation Now Available for Windows and Macintosh

San Francisco, Calif.—May 12, 1998—Macromedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: MACR) today announced that Flash 3, the leading design tool for interactive vector graphics and animation on the Web, is now shipping for Windows and Macintosh for an estimated street price of $299 US. Flash 3 is also now part of the Design in Motion Suite, along with FreeHand 8 and Insta.HTML, for an estimated street price of $499 US. Flash 3 is a major upgrade that enables web interface designers to create and deliver compelling, interactive content - even over slow modem connections. New features in Flash 3 include vector and bitmap transparency, animated buttons and menus, shape morphing, bandwidth profiling and standalone projectors.

Since the Flash 3 public beta was released in April, over 30,000 downloads have been recorded from the Flash web site, www.flash.com. Innovative web designers such as the International Olympic Committee, e3directiv, Shift Online, Suzuki, Sony Camcorders Europe, Smashing Ideas and ThoughtBubble Productions have already incorporated Flash 3 into their day-to-day production schedule.

"We're excited by what Macromedia has done with Flash 3 to improve an already great technology," said Jason Yim, Creative Director at Media Revolution, developer of such movie sites as X-Files, Amistad, Deep Impact, Alien Resurrection and Air Force One. "Macromedia has taken a technology that had great linear animation capabilities and enabled much more dynamic and interactive experiences. The added functionality of Flash 3 and its easy to use editor is going to make the designer's job quite a bit easier." Media Revolution can be visited on the web at http://www.mediarevolution.com.

New Features In Flash 3

Flash 3 offers several fundamental new design capabilities that enable web designers to deliver compact, fast and beautiful web graphics and animation - even over slow modem connections.

Vector and Bitmap Transparency enables users to overlay transparent vector objects on bitmaps, and vary the attributes at any time. For example, set-top box developers can use this feature to create transparent program guides that overlay video.
Sprite Animation allows for easy creation of animated buttons, hierarchical and pop-up menus, checkboxes and puzzle games. Sprite animation enables Flash users to incorporate more intuitive navigation and sophisticated interactivity into their web pages.
Shape Morphing allows web designers to easily morph any graphic across any number of key frames. Morphing enables fast, eye-catching transitions.
Bandwidth Profiling provides a graphical representation of how Flash movies are streaming at various Internet connection speeds. Bandwidth profiling helps guarantee fast delivery of web graphics and animation.
Standalone Projectors enable delivery of Flash movies along with the Flash player in a single executable file. Projectors enable everything from greeting cards delivered on floppy disks to standalone presentations.

Vectors Revolutionize The Web

Vector-based graphics have numerous advantages in designing animation, graphics, and user interface for web pages. Flash, which is based on vector technology, produces files that are compact and which stream, or play, as they download. Files created in Flash break the bandwidth barrier to provide users with high performance playback, even over slow modem connections. Playback is also ubiquitous, and supported on a wide variety of platforms and by numerous web standards, including .swf, GIF and animated GIF. Flash also has the ability to play back in Java enabled browsers via the new Flash player Java Edition.

Macromedia recently published the Flash file format (.swf) to provide an open Internet standard for delivering vector graphics and animation on the Web. The open Flash file format enables platform vendors to provide a more attractive environment to content publishers, allows web designers to make animation a standard element in their web site designs, and enables developers to deliver Flash-compatible authoring and editing tools. To learn more about Flash and vector graphics, visit www.flash.com.

Pricing and Availability

Flash 3 for Windows 95, Windows NT and Power Macintosh is now available for an estimated street price of $299 US, and an upgrade price of $99 US from any previous version of Flash or FutureSplash. Flash is also available with FreeHand 8 and Insta.HTML in the Design in Motion Suite at the estimated street price of $499 US. Users of any previous version of Flash or FreeHand may upgrade to the complete Design in Motion Suite for $299 US. All products are available for purchase directly from Macromedia at www.macromall.com or (800) 457-1774, and through traditional software distribution channels. Interested parties outside North America should contact their local Macromedia distributor for pricing and availability. For the name of a Macromedia authorized reseller in your area, call (800) 326-2128 or visit http://www.macromedia.com.

About Macromedia

Headquartered in San Francisco, Macromedia (NASDAQ: MACR) is a leading provider of software products, each designed to help make creativity and interactivity more possible in the new technology ecosystem. Macromedia's award-winning products for Windows, Macintosh and the Internet are available to business, education, and government customers worldwide. Additional information on Macromedia is available on the Internet at http://www.macromedia.com.

Flash, Design in Motion Suite, FreeHand and Insta.HTML are trademarks or registered trademarks of Macromedia, Inc., as indicated. Other company names, brand names and product names may be trademark(s) of others.