Shapeware Launches Visio Shapes
Extends Visio's Stencil Offerings

SEATTLE--Feb. 15, 1993--Shapeware Corporation today announced the launch of
Visio Shapes, a line of add-on stencil products for Visio, its new
drag-and-drop drawing program. Visio is targeted at business and technical
users who need to create drawings or diagrams but are not graphics
specialists, and Visio Shapes extends the number and types of drawings
available to users of Visio.

"Shapeware's mission is to bring the power of drawing to a wide range of
business and technical users," said Jeremy Jaech, Shapeware president.
"With Visio Shapes add-on products, we are giving our current users
expanded drawing capabilities and we are also reaching new users with more
specialized drawing and diagramming needs."

Visio currently ships with 17 stencils containing more than 300 predefined
shapes from a wide range of drawing types. Visio users can now select from
16 additional Visio Shapes products.

Extensive Visio Shapes collections for marketing diagrams, office space
plans, computer network diagrams, and even insurance claims and policies,
are available for business users interested in drawing solutions related
to their specific professional areas. Visio Shapes products for electrical
engineering, mechanical engineering and software diagramming provide
technical users with a means to quickly and accurately diagram their work.
Home owners who use Visio at the office can now design or remodel their
home, kitchen, bathroom or garden using the same drag-and-drop drawing
technique.

Visio--an Extensible Drawing Platform

Visio was designed so that users can add to the number of drawing types
they can do with the program. Shapeware expects this initial offering of
16 add-on products to be expanded upon by its own shape designers as well
as third parties. However, companies that use Visio don't have to wait for
the shapes they need. Since creating a new "master" shape is as easy as
dragging a shape from the drawing page back to the stencil, users can
create their own custom stencils. Advanced users can create logos,
backgrounds, symbols and other graphics for everyone in a department or
company to standardize on.

Visio Shapes are more than just a collection of clip art or symbol
libraries. They are SmartShapes: intelligent shapes that are programmed to
behave as a user would expect shapes to behave. As a result they make
drawing both easier and more intuitive.

Even "programming" new shapes with intelligent behavior is readily
accessible to advanced users. While average users will probably never have
the need, power users can open the ShapeSheet behind any shape and--with
the use of standard spreadsheet functions--program the desired shape
behavior.

Shapeware is responding to corporate users and third parties who have
expressed interest in developing shapes by publishing a book entitled
"Developing Visio Shapes." This guide is scheduled to be available by the
end of April for $29.

Price and Availability

Visio Shapes are available direct from Shapeware and through leading
national resellers. The Shapeware list price for these products ranges
from $39 to $79 and includes a 60-day money back guarantee. For further
information about Visio or Visio Shapes, customers can call (800)
446-3335. Shapeware expects more shapes for the Visio drawing platform to
appear on a regular basis.

About Shapeware

Founded in October 1990 to develop and market mainstream business graphics
software products for personal computers, Shapeware shipped its first
product, Visio, in November 1992. The Seattle-based company's founders
include Jeremy Jaech and Dave Walter, two of the founders of Aldus
Corporation, and Ted Johnson, the lead developer of Aldus PageMaker for
Windows. Shapeware has been funded by Technology Venture Investors (TVI)
and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, both of which are represented on the
company's board of directors. The board also includes Scott Oki, a
Shapeware investor and former Microsoft senior vice president.

Shapeware, 1601 Fifth Ave, Ste 800, Seattle, WA 98101-1625
206-467-6723;  fax: 206-467-7227

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