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Santa Cruz Networks Introduces World's First Real-Time Communications -- RTC -- Platform

Posted on: Tuesday, 15 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 15, 2003--

Already Commercially Deployed, Massively Scalable RTC Platform

Signals New Era in Online Communications

Santa Cruz Networks today unveiled the world's first Internet platform that allows PC users to unify their online communications, letting them interact -- face-to-face and in real-time -- with colleagues or friends around the globe.

According to Santa Cruz Networks CEO Keith Teare, the platform allows desktop users to combine their favorite media -- IM, voice, video and application sharing -- to interact with individuals and groups, and all from a unified interface.

Turns desktops into videophone workspaces

"With a small camera and headset, you can transform your PC into a videophone, and converse with any number of colleagues around the world, while collaborating on spreadsheets, Word docs, PowerPoints or other mission-critical applications. This enables the instant `give-and-take' that accelerates team progress and leads to quicker decisions," noted Teare.

Teare's company and its "Multi-point Real-Time Communications (RTC) Platform(TM)," were recently recognized by AlwaysOn media as one of the 100 Top Private Companies of 2003 delivering the Internet's next wave of "innovative technologies that will disrupt existing markets and entrenched players."

Teare said the Multi-Point RTC Platform(TM) overcomes three barriers that have long hampered real-time voice and video over the Internet. The solution minimizes the latency that causes video to fragment, or even freeze, the communication. It also provides multi-point connectivity, allowing dozens or even hundreds to participate in group videoconferences. And it unifies all digital media -- not just current but emerging applications like instant video messaging, webcam streaming, video-blogging, and full-motion news and entertainment.

Tim Draper, managing partner of Draper Fisher Jurvetson and the venture capitalist who funded HotMail, said that the Santa Cruz platform "goes beyond the first wave, email, and the second wave, IM, to deliver the third wave -- instant messaging with voice/video overlay for both individuals and groups. As with IM, users can use `presence-awareness' to detect which others on their buddy list are available, initiate a multi-person meeting on-the-fly, and instantly begin conversing in the rapid-fire dialog that's made IM so popular."

Leverages public IP networks to drive down costs

As with Voice-Over-IP, the Santa Cruz Networks platform uses the Internet instead of traditional telephone lines to greatly reduce costs. VidiTel, a service provider that has recently deployed the platform, reports that it has been able to reduce videoconferencing charges to its world-wide subscribers by 83% over traditional videoconferencing. Over the course of its development, the Santa Cruz Networks technology has logged an estimated 1.5 billion minutes serving 130,000 people throughout the world.

Barry Spencer, chief technology officer and the software architect for Lotus 1-2-3, noted that "We're on the cusp of another wave of breakthrough Internet applications, and many are visually based. Right now, most video offerings suffer such long delays that it's impossible to converse naturally. Our patent-pending Bandwidth Discovery Protocol(TM) adapts to fluctuating bandwidth -- dynamically optimizing the digital stream to ensure the best communication possible."

Combines all digital media into a single experience

Unlike point applications such as AOL's instant messaging, videoconferencing like Polycom, or WebEx-type document-sharing, the Multi-point RTC Platform unifies all popular media forms to deliver a unified visual, auditory and document-sharing experience. "The challenge all along has been to meet online with others just as you do in the real world. Our platform delivers that all-inclusive experience," noted Teare.

Delivers on the promise of videoconferencing productivity

Teare said the platform finally fulfills the decade-long potential of videoconferencing as a productivity tool. "The business case for virtual meetings has always been compelling -- witness the videocon installations gathering dust in virtually every board-room in the country. They're rarely used because they're inconvenient to set-up, the transmission costs too much and the video often trails the voice. We've resolved those problems and, perhaps even more importantly, we've delivered a solution to the desktops of the entire workforce, so everybody can solve problems at their level.

"Drastically lower video-transmission costs, coupled with real-time collaboration that reduces time-to-decisions, means greater productivity. In the end, that's what matters most," said Teare.

Platform to be delivered to end-users via three channels

Santa Cruz Networks intends to introduce its technology to information workers and consumers by penetrating the value-chain at several levels.

-- Network infrastructure OEMs -- The server/software solution

will be integrated into turnkey IP networks by telecom OEMs

tasked with building future digital networks for corporations

and service providers. Five years in development, the Santa

Cruz Networks platform has been designed specifically to meet

the rigorous demands for a robust, next-generation platform:

"It is extensible, massively scalable, low cost, and

inherently secure, unlike previous solutions," said Spencer.

-- Service providers and carriers -- For network operators, the

platform's client/server-based TCP/IP architecture was

engineered to maintain extremely high quality-of-service (QoS)

levels, despite the inherent variability of bandwidth and

usage levels in the public Internet. The platform also

provides a critical billing and customer-support component --

along with customization software tools -- so new or virtual

carriers can deploy virtually out-of-the-box, and with very

little capital equipment expenditure.

"The rise of the Internet has enabled a new generation of

small businesses to enter the communications business. With

this platform, we've dropped the bar even lower. Truly, the

cost barrier is so low that two guys and a credit card can

enter this business -- armed with a carrier-class solution

that is tried-and-true, having already delivered over l.5

billion minutes-of-use."

-- Global 2000 enterprises -- The platform was also designed to

unify the broad range of disparate media channels and formats

that Global 2000 enterprises are grappling with -- instant

messaging, executive videoconferencing, web-casting services,

long-distance IP telephony, land-line and wireless --

ultimately all on a single server. "Operations executives are

quite concerned about all the communications applications

proliferating beyond their control. A secure solution that

unifies all digital communications within their corporate

intranet is a very attractive proposition to them," added

Teare.

The Multi-point Real-time Communications Platform is available immediately. Basic platform functionality starts at $50,000 with a capacity rating of 200 simultaneous voice and video calls, and 2000 simultaneously connected users, delivering up to 100 million minutes-of-use per year. Contact Santa Cruz Networks for additional information on enhanced-functionality prices and delivery schedules.

About Santa Cruz Networks

Venture-backed Santa Cruz Networks is the first to deploy a commercial platform providing multi-point, unified real-time communications via the Internet. Our vision is to deliver rich digital media communications to every desktop, in every workplace and every home, and to every network-connected mobile device. We are achieving this by delivering a robust, massively scalable, distributed IP-based platform supporting high-quality, secure real-time media including IM, voice, video and application-sharing, and a wide range of future applications. The Santa Cruz Networks RTC platform is primarily delivered via service providers and Global 2000 enterprises using our carrier-class solutions.

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