For Immediate Release

EMERYVILLE, CA, April 9, 1999 - TechniCon (SM) Corp., a leading developer of product customization software for sales automation and electronic commerce, announced today it is supplying critical product selection/visualization technology for the popular technical drawing program, Visio Technical 5.0 Plus. Visio Technical is a leading application from Visio Corp. (NASDAQ "VSIO"), a supplier of enterprisewide business diagramming and technical drawing software with an installed base of nearly 2.8 million users.

Drawing on its 10 years of experience in contract office furniture sales automation and visualization, TechniCon provided Visio with key technology for the Equipment Selector portion of Visio Technical 5.0 Plus. The Equipment Selector allows users to efficiently select, customize, visualize and itemize manufacturer-specific office furniture from within Visio Technical.

"In the past, selecting manufacturer-specific furniture during the facilities planning process was a tedious process involving complex CAD-based systems. However, most facilities managers don't have CAD expertise," said Mark Sherman, Director of Visio's Engineering and Design Customer Group. "With the new Equipment Selector in Visio Technical 5.0 Plus, now even non-CAD experts can quickly and easily configure their furniture systems."

Sorting through and specifying particular office furniture attributes has always been challenging for facility managers given the thousands of options that exist for these products.

"TechniCon's intelligent parametric technology makes it easy for Visio Technical 5.0 Plus users to navigate through thousands of furniture items, efficiently specify options and generate cost estimates," said Anthony Mirante, president of TechniCon. "As a result, it helps facilities managers reduce costs and become more productive."

Using the Equipment Selector portion of Visio Technical 5.0 Plus, facility managers and interior designers can now quickly narrow their product search and generate a list of products that conform to specific attributes such as price range, size, material, number of drawers, etc. Users can also search by part numbers. These features allow them to quickly generate detailed inventory lists. The Equipment Selector also includes detailed 2D images that provide accurate visualization of selected products.

TechniCon also supplied a specially designed database representing Steelcase 9000 Series furniture products, the best-selling office furniture system. As a result, Visio Technical users can easily drag and drop Steelcase-specific furniture shapes into their space planning layouts and then change the configuration of products as needed. The database also incorporates pricing information, allowing users to instantly generate cost estimates. These estimates can later be exported as Standard Interchange Format (SIF) files, which can be integrated with a furniture dealer's business system and then forwarded on to the manufacturer, thus fully completing the supply chain.

The Facilities Management Solution in Visio Technical 5.0 Plus is an easy-to-use tool developed for facility managers and others who track and manage the people and assets of a facility. The solution includes tools for quickly creating space plans and for tracking assets across the enterprise, as well as performing "what if" space planning.  Easier to use than CAD, Visio Technical 5.0 Plus allows even non-CAD users to work with facilities data in an intuitive, graphical environment.

TechniCon, based in Emeryville, Calif., is a leading developer of mass customization software used for electronic commerce and sales automation. Using the latest 2D/3D graphics and Internet technologies, TechniCon makes it easy for buyers, corporate procurement managers and salespeople to preview and order products that meet today's build-to-order requirements. By allowing buyers to fully visualize and configure products directly over the Internet and at the point of sale, TechniCon's software helps companies shorten the sales cycle, reduce costs, decrease product configuration errors, and increase customer satisfaction.

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TechniCon is a service mark of TechniCon Corp.
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