LEAD TECHNOLOGIES ANNOUNCES SUPPORT OF
MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO 6.0

Charlotte, NC (August 24, 1998) - LEAD Technologies, Inc. announces support of Microsoft’s Visual Studio™ development system 6.0. LEADTOOLS allows developers to add imaging technology including support for scanning, color conversion, display/special effects, annotation, image processing, compression, image format import/export, imaging common dialogs, Internet/Intranet imaging, database imaging, printing, OCR, screen capture, multimedia and FlashPix extension support into their Visual Studio 6.0–based project easily.

Visual Studio 6.0 allows LEAD’s customers to take full advantage of the Internet while still using existing technology investments. Because LEADTOOLS is available as an ActiveX® (COM object) control, it can be used by any of the tools in the Visual Studio suite. LEADTOOLS is also available in the form of a DLL, for customers who want to create their own COM object that provides LEADTOOLS functionality. With the powerful web development capabilities of Visual Studio 6.0, you can develop applications that run on traditional, stand-alone desktop computers or that run over the Internet using the same LEADTOOLS components.

Additionally, Microsoft® Visual Studio 6.0 adds value for our customers by supplying high-performance data access to all types of information, from any data source on any platform. With Universal Data Access, our customers can store and retrieve image and multimedia data to and from any data source using OLE DB, ActiveX Data Objects, or ODBC. When combined with LEADTOOLS’ ability to save images in over 100 different image formats, this provides the basis for a high-performance database imaging application.

Rich Little, president of LEAD, states, "LEADTOOLS complements Microsoft Visual Studio by making it easier than ever to create COM components for adding still frame, audio and motion video imaging into applications written with Microsoft tools."

"The web is enabling businesses to fundamentally change how they interact with their customers and business partners," said Paul Gross, vice president of development tools at Microsoft Corp. "Developers can use the open, extensible environment of Visual Studio and LEAD’s comprehensive imaging and compression tools, along with the enabling foundation of the Windows® Distributed Internet Applications (Windows DNA) architecture, to capitalize on the innovative business benefits of the web."

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About Microsoft Visual Studio
LEAD Technologies, Inc. is one of many companies announcing support for Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0. Visual Studio 6.0 Professional Edition is a comprehensive suite of industry-leading development tools for building business applications for the Windows NT® Server network operating system, including client/server, multi-tier and web-based solutions. Visual Studio 6.0 Professional Edition features the Visual Basic® 6.0 development system, the Visual C++® 6.0 development system, the Visual J++™ 6.0 development system for Java, the Visual InterDev™ 6.0 web development system, the Visual FoxPro® 6.0 database development system, Windows NT Option Pack and the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN™) Library CD-ROM. Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise Edition is the complete suite for rapidly building scalable enterprise solutions. The Enterprise Edition comes with all the components of the Professional Edition and also includes key enterprise and team development features designed to help developers rapidly build scalable, distributed applications that can be easily integrated with existing enterprise systems and applications. More information on Visual Studio 6.0 is available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/.

About LEAD Technologies, Inc.
Founded in 1990, LEAD grew out of years of research headed by Moe Daher to find a comprehensive compression standard for digital images. LEAD is now the world-leading supplier of imaging development toolkits, providing technology of the future, today. LEAD brings to the market the most innovative and technically superior products that provide the greatest possible value for its customers. LEAD’s award winning imaging technology is chosen by Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Boeing, Xerox and thousands of other companies for use in their high volume applications and internal systems.