Escient® Ships New FireBall E-40 and FireBall E-120 Digital Music Management Products

New FireBall Digital Music Management Products Offer Users Advanced New Features and Easy Network Connectivity

INDIANAPOLIS, IN -- March 25, 2003 -- Escient, the pioneering leader in the design, development, manufacture, marketing, sales, distribution and support of a groundbreaking new category of audio/video products that meld Internet power seamlessly with intuitive home-entertainment devices, announced today that the company has begun shipping two eagerly awaited new FireBall products. The new products include models with embedded Ethernet - the FireBall E-40 and E-120. Representing the latest offerings in Escients award-winning Physital line, FireBall E-40 and FireBall E-120 provide users an advanced client-server architecture in order to further enhance Escient customers usability and enjoyment of their music collections.    

Offering 40 GB and 120 GB hard disc drives respectively, the new Fireball E-40 and FireBall E-120 build on the compelling FireBall feature set, while adding several compelling new features. By incorporating built-in 10/100T Ethernet, these products can easily interface to a variety of in-home, high-speed Ethernet and wireless networks. These models provide centralized music and music related information storage accessible to home networks through a compelling, easy-to-use Escient interface.

These latest FireBall server" products are the first in the line to add full, user selectable, uncompressed audio to the management of MP3, Internet radio stations, and CDs. In addition to managing Sony CD mega-changers, FireBall E models also provide full CD control and management of up to either three Pioneer DVF-07 or three Kenwood DV-5050M/5900M changers. These models also provide expanded dialup ISP support, MP3 to CD-DA recording features, the ability to add individual Internet radio stations to the Escient-supplied stations and client-server music database sharing. A software upgrade that adds many of these new features is now available for all existing FireBall clients at no charge.

Bernie Sepaniak, President and CEO of Escient, said, These new models represent the next generation of our FireBall family with the latest in digital technology, again demonstrating that Escient is taking a strong leadership position in digital audio and entertainment management. This, along with the unique architecture of these products, enables us to further build on our existing standards of excellence. As home entertainment technology continues to evolve, our enhanced FireBall line will be meeting the challenges head on, with an expandable, flexible system that will allow our users to select the best solution for them as they continue to grow, manage and fully enjoy their music collections like never before."

The FireBall E-40 carries a suggested retail price of $1,999 and FireBall E-120 carries a suggested retail price of $2,999. An approved international version of the FireBall E-120 will also be shipping this week. The current FireBall, priced at $1,999 suggested retail, will be available through mid-2003.

About FireBall:
The FireBall servers and managers are complete music management products that provide powerful, yet simple-to-use, ways to find and play CDs, MP3s, uncompressed audio, and style-based Internet radio stations (such as jazz, blues, rock, etc), including high-speed Sirius satellite stations. The revolutionary product automatically recognizes and displays album cover art, album and song titles, artist information and more -- through the onscreen Escient interface. FireBall allows direct access to music stored on the hard drive, CDs, supported mega-disc CD changers, and is compatible with a wide variety of leading control and audio distribution systems. FireBall provides a seamless interface for ripping" a users CD collection stored in changers into a digital format on FireBalls hard drive. The CDs are then available in non-physical based formats for faster access to music, distribution around the home using additional FireBall servers, and downloading to supported portable MP3 players. FireBall identifies, burns, catalogs, and manages both physical discs and digital-music files and has a CD-R/R-W single internal drive for playback and for copying music at six times (6x) normal speed.

About Escient:
Escient is the combined company of Escient Convergence Corp. and OpenGlobe Inc. and is the pioneering leader in the design, development, manufacture, marketing, sales, distribution and support of a groundbreaking new category of audio/video products that meld Internet power seamlessly with intuitive home-entertainment devices. Escients products and services are designed to enhance the entertainment experience by providing previously unheard-of ways to access music, movies and related content throughout the home. The company possess a deep portfolio of designs for new products including media servers, DVD systems, remote players, and networking and streaming devices, that are brought to market under the Escient brand through a channel of over 800 locations throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Mexico, and in partnership with other leading global consumer electronics brands.