Progressive Networks Announces RealAudio Firewall Proxy Kit

RealAudio Gains Network Security Support From Eleven Companies

Public Proxy and Third Party Solutions Further Commitment to Open Systems
and Interoperability

LAS VEGAS, April 2, 1996 -- Progressive Networks today announced the
availability of a RealAudio Firewall Proxy Kit allowing firewall and
system administrators to build custom firewall solutions to support
RealAudio. The announcement is being made in conjunction with the launch
of Progressive Networks' Intranet offerings of a corporate licensing
program and Intranet Server pricing, the shipment of the final release of
RealAudio 2.0 and the availability of RealAudio through a number of
resellers and system integrators throughout the U.S. The company is making
these announcements today at Interop Dotcom, being held here through
Thursday, April 4th, at the Las Vegas Hilton Convention Center in booth
#312.

"The RealAudio Firewall Proxy Kit works as advertised," said Thes Hansen,
manager of interactive services at MCA/Universal Studios. "The people
within my organization are absolutely thrilled that they can now hear
RealAudio. This technology is terrific."

The RealAudio Firewall Proxy Kit includes specifications and reference
source code that can be used to build either a transparent or
application-level firewall proxy. A common feature on the Internet,
firewalls represent a common security technique which effectively hides an
organization's internal network from the rest of the Internet. Firewalls
act as security boundaries between joined networks, relaying only
authorized communications from one network to the other. Organizations
interested in building a RealAudio proxy for use on their firewall can
obtain copies of the RealAudio Firewall Proxy Kit from Progressive
Networks' Web site located at http://www.realaudio.com.

The public proxy is targeted at organizations using either proprietary or
public domain firewalls to protect their networks. In addition, the
RealAudio 2.0 System supports a new TCP-only data option which will allow
a large number of corporate customers to access RealAudio without any
firewall modifications. Today's announcement compliments efforts underway
by leading commercial firewall manufacturers to support the RealAudio
protocol with their products.

"Progressive Networks is firmly committed to concepts of open systems and
interoperability," said Rob Glaser, CEO and chairman of Progressive
Networks. "We have already announced plans to publish our protocol and
playback engine API's, and the publication of our firewall proxy furthers
this commitment into the network security arena."

Working in cooperation with NCSA's Firewall Product Developers Consortium,
Progressive Networks has teamed up with the leading commercial firewall
manufacturers to have RealAudio supported in future versions of their
firewall products. Network security companies shipping RealAudio support
this month include: Checkpoint Software Technologies, Inc., Border Network
Technologies Inc., Trusted Information Systems, Morning Star Technologies,
Cisco Systems, Global Technology Associates, Technologic, Inc.,
enterWorks.com (the network products subsidiary of Telos Company),
Network-1 Software and Technology, Inc., Cypress Consulting, Inc. and
Workgroup Systems Ltd.

"The RealAudio people seem to be doing many things right," said Peter
Tippett, president of the National Computer Security Association. "When
Progressive Networks approached the Firewall Product Developers Consortium
with a security question about passing real-time multimedia through
commercial firewalls, the members of the consortium applauded the action
and unanimously endorsed their proposal."

Other network security companies planning on supporting RealAudio in future
versions of their products include: ANS InterLock Service, Atlantic
Systems Group, Digital Equipment Corp., Harris Computer Systems Corp.,
IBM, Internet Security Systems, Livermore Software Laboratories, Inc.,
Milkyway Networks Corp., Norman Data Defense Systems, Inc., Raptor
Systems, Inc., Secure Computing Corp., Sterling Software, Smallworks, Inc.
and Sun Microsystems.

"CheckPoint Software is proud to be the first network security company to
support RealAudio," said Deborah Triant, president and CEO of CheckPoint
Software Technologies, Inc. "We are pleased to see the rest of the
industry follow our lead in providing support for this important emerging
Internet and Intranet application."

ABOUT THE REALAUDIO SYSTEM

Progressive Networks' RealAudio client-server software system enables
Internet and online users equipped with conventional multimedia personal
computers and voice-grade telephone lines to browse, select and play back
audio or audio-based multimedia content on demand, in real time. This is a
real breakthrough compared to typical download times encountered with
delivery of audio over conventional online methods in which audio is
downloaded at a rate that is five times longer than the actual program;
the listener must wait 25 minutes before listening to just five minutes of
audio. Since its introduction last April, over four million RealAudio
Players have been distributed with over 25,000 being downloaded from the
RealAudio Web site daily. Thousands of RealAudio Servers are currently
delivering audio and streaming multimedia content on the Web. The
RealAudio Personal Servers will also be shipped with future versions of
Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

The RealAudio System consists of the RealAudio Player, a client-based
software enabling Internet/online users to access existing audio for
instant playback, and the RealAudio Server, which enables major media
content providers to distribute audio or audio-based multimedia streams
over the Internet to a broad base of consumers and end users. A RealAudio
Encoder allows individuals to encode their audio programming for nearly
any analog or digital source.

ABOUT PROGRESSIVE NETWORKS

Progressive Networks (http://www.realaudio.com) based in Seattle, develops
and markets software products and services designed to enable users of
personal computers and other digital devices to send and receive audio and
audio-based multimedia services using the existing infrastructure.
 
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