LONG BEACH, California — September 5, 2003 — Design Science today announced a licensing arrangement with Microsoft that will provide MathPlayer™ software to MSN users. Terms were not disclosed. MathPlayer displays MathML-based mathematical notation within Microsoft's web browser products, including Internet Explorer and the MSN client. MathML is the XML-based standard for encoding mathematics developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and supported by most popular web browsers.

Unlike other ways of delivering math notation in web pages, such as GIF images and PDF, MathML captures the meaning and structure of math, thereby enabling user interaction, accessibility, searching and computation. "MathML has tremendous potential for enhancing math and science web pages," said Dr. Robert Miner, Design Science's Director of New Product Development. "We're currently conducting research into searching mathematics, and development work is already underway to add speech capabilities to MathPlayer for visually-impaired readers. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires content be accessible when possible, but for math, adequate solutions just haven't been available. MathML is changing that."

MathPlayer includes a right-click menu that allows the user to copy mathematics from the web page into MathML-enabled software, such as graphing and calculation applications, as well as into HTML and XML authoring tools for use in new content. MathPlayer allows copying to the system clipboard, drag-and-drop, as well as commands to open equations in Design Science's other MathML-enabled products, MathType and WebEQ.

In addition to being distributed with content products such as MSN, MathPlayer is also available as a free download on the Design Science web site to MathML-enable Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser. MathPlayer is available for third-party distribution to support MathML content on internal networks and physical media, such as CD-ROM.

About Design Science, Inc.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Long Beach, California, Design Science develops software used by educators, scientists and publishing professionals, including MathType, Equation Editor in Microsoft Office, WebEQ, MathFlow, MathPlayer and TeXaide, to communicate on the web and in print. For more information please visit http://www.dessci.com.

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Contact:

Bruce Virga
Vice President Sales
brucev@dessci.com
800-827-0685
562-432-2920

Design Science, Inc.
140 Pine Avenue, 4th Floor
Long Beach, CA 90802, USA