Bitstream Releases Major Upgrade to Its Leading Text Composition Engine for Small Embedded Systems; Release of Bitstream Panorama 3.0 includes full support for Arabic, Hebrew, Indian, and Thai complex language scripts

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 14, 2006--Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) announced today the release of version 3.0 of Bitstream Panorama(TM), a worldwide text composition engine that enables developers to compose and render text in any international language, including such complex scripts as Arabic, Hebrew, Indic, and Thai.

"Our customers are interested in one solution that enables them to compose and display high-quality text in all the world's languages. They also need the flexibility to create modular products that can support any language in any region of the world in which they market, license, and sell their devices and applications," said Anna Chagnon, President and CEO of Bitstream. "Overall, we have upgraded Panorama to support all the world's foremost complex scripting languages. This release includes a new Thai shaping engine, which means we now support complex text composition for Arabic, Indic, Hebrew and Thai - in addition to all other worldwide languages."

She continued: "We are seeing increasing demand for consumer solutions in Asia, particularly China and India. Together with Font Fusion(R), Bitstream Panorama offers a global font solution for developers building consumer electronics devices, mobile phones, set-top boxes, and small embedded systems. This is a complete product that our customers can implement quickly and upgrade at any time in order to provide consumers with complete international support."

Bitstream Panorama enables developers to draw strings of characters and lay out complex lines of text, including the composing, positioning and rendering of text. The product applies bi-directional algorithms for writing direction, interprets language rules and glyph information, applies contextual shaping to position and connect characters, combines characters and diacritical marks, and renders the composed text. Bitstream Panorama supports all international languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Indic, and Thai scripts.

"Most languages are straightforward and can be composed and rendered without having to consider writing direction, language rules, character substitution and positioning, and other traditionally application-level text composition," said Bob Thomas, Director of Product Management for Bitstream. "But some languages rely on character designs whose context can change depending on their position in a word or block of text. These languages require special functionality to interpret language rules and compose characters before they can be rendered. This is where the intelligence of a text composition engine like Bitstream Panorama is absolutely necessary."

Commented Sampo Kaasila, Vice-President of Research and Development for Bitstream: "As we always do with our products, we have improved overall text composition performance, specifically the speed at which we parse and shape text. Support for all the world's languages, support for multiple fonts in any block of text, support for cursor rendering and positioning, improved performance and implementation - these all make Bitstream Panorama the best complete solution for worldwide text composition and rendering."

About Bitstream

Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) is a software development company that makes communications compelling. Bitstream enables customers worldwide to render high-quality text, browse the Web on wireless devices, select from the largest collection of fonts online, and customize documents over the Internet. Its core competencies include font technology, browsing technology, e-commerce technology, and publishing technology. For more information, please visit Bitstream at http://www.bitstream.com.

Bitstream and Font Fusion are registered trademarks and the Bitstream logo and Bitstream Panorama are trademarks of Bitstream Inc. Other technologies and brand names are used for information only and remain trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies