Las Vegas, Nevada, April 7th 2003
SOFTIMAGE ANNOUNCES SOFTIMAGE|XSI V.3.5 FEATURING SPEED, INTEROPERABILITY AND WORKFLOW ADVANCES

— Continued Fast Pace of Customer-Driven New Versions Underscores Company’s Unmatched Commitment to Innovation and the Professional 3-D Market —

At NAB 2003, Softimage Co., a subsidiary of Avid Technology, Inc., today announced version 3.5 of its SOFTIMAGE®|XSI® software, the industry’s leading nonlinear 3-D production environment.

In addition to including hundreds of new tools and refinements to increase creativity, productivity and reliability in any production, the SOFTIMAGE|XSI v.3.5 environment also seamlessly and completely integrates mental ray v3.2, the new version of the award-winning rendering technology from mental images GmbH & Co. KG.

The latest version of the XSI environment, which follows less than six months after the release of version 3.0, is driven by the production requirements of industry leading customers, including Capcom, Electronic Arts, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Konami, Mainframe, Pixel Liberation Front (PLF), Sega, The Mill and Valve, and continues the company’s unmatched pace of development. The SOFTIMAGE|XSI v.3.5 environment further extends Softimage’s position as the professional 3-D market leader in innovation, customer responsiveness and return on investment.