Software AG and Kontext Media, Inc. form Strategic Partnership to deliver comprehensive digital signage and narrowcasting solutions to the North American marketplace.

Toronto, Canada, July 26, 2005 --(PR.com)-- Software AG and Kontext Media, Inc. announced a partnership to bring together the powerful combination of Software AG’s Via2 Platform and Visual Publisher products and Kontext’s consulting, hardware and “Kontent” solutions for the North American digital signage and narrowcasting market. This complete solution offering provides customers with a cost-effective and convenient alternative to qualifying and dealing with multiple suppliers for digital signage and narrowcasting initiatives. SAG’s software provides a robust digital signage solution that competes head-on with available offerings; furthermore, it is unique in its ability to deliver security, monitoring and audience measures via biometrics for every screen in the network.

Under the partnership, Software AG provides its Via2 Platform and Visual Publisher and attendant components (Publisher Client, Publisher Reactive, Publisher Consumer Track, Report Generic Consumer Track and XML Mart Report Engine) to Kontext as a systems integrator, while Kontext provides its customized consulting, hardware and managed services offering to customers.

Software AG’s Digital Signage Solution is a complete platform that delivers the necessary features to create digital signage and narrowcasting networks in order to broadcast eye-catching promotional content and advertising to customers within the context of their buying decision, or information to employees at any location. The solution enables new ways of reaching, informing and influencing customers and/or employees, whether the company has one location or hundreds. Its ease of operation and production tools simplify the work of attracting, entertaining and influencing customer purchase decisions. It also handles the job of corporate communications, providing employees with time-critical information, while allowing the customer to focus on sales.

The unique Publisher Reactive tool allows adjustment of screen status or broadcast content upon evaluation of the audience of all screens at a given moment. This enables the system to adjust the content to be broadcasted to the available public, enhancing the impact of advertising, while measuring the advertising impact at the same time.

Software AG’s Digital Signage Solution is based on Visual Publisher - a multimedia digital signage solution - designed and developed by Visual Century, a Software AG branch specialized in image and multimedia research and development.

Visual Publisher uses the rich media asset management technology of the ViA2 Platform to provide a simple way to organize and locate all types of multimedia content, including video, audio, images, texts and URLs, via RTSP, FTP or Web-Dab. The XML-based ViA2 Platform, which works over Tamino XML Server of Software AG, has a modular and highly flexible architecture, as well as a user-friendly interface and Web-based query modules that allow intuitive content searches. Visual Publisher provides secure-access features on its ViA2 Platform administration tools, which support user profiles with different access rights.

Customers will benefit from the combination of Software AG’s vast experience in providing enterprise-level software solutions and Kontext’s regional focus on and experience in the North American digital signage market. The combined solution will dramatically reduce the time needed to execute merchandising message changes, enabling real-time business agility and competitive advantage, improving both bottom- and top-line results.

Software AG and Kontext Media will offer implementation and support services as well as joint sales and marketing activities.

“We are delighted to be working with Kontext Media, a recognized market leader in providing innovative, managed digital signage and narrowcasting solutions”, said Francisco Gomez-Vila, Products & Solutions Director for Software AG South Europe & Americas. “We have a common vision for the narrowcasting and digital signage market in North America, so it makes sense that we partner to benefit customers.”

Pravin Rodrigues, President and CEO of Kontext Media, Inc. said, “We are excited to partner with Software AG, and to enable customers to benefit from their breadth of portfolio and trusted product lines. We wanted to offer North American customers an alternative to the high-priced, complex, one-way solutions that are actually stifling the growth of the market today.”

“Software AG’s Via2/Visual Publisher solution, combined with our expertise will enable customers to message to their customer base, and to gather, store and retrieve valuable audience information with the use of biometrics. The solution’s measurement and security features combined with our ability to deliver cost-effective content, hardware and services will help move the market forward.”

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