The agreement between Tao and NEC Corporation has seen intent ported to NEC's EMMArchiture, which is an integrated digital TV one-chip silicon solution. Read the full press release below.

IBC, Amsterdam, September 8th, 2000 - NEC Electronics and Tao announced today the availability of support for Tao's intent(TM), Java(TM) Technology Edition, the Sun authorised Java Virtual Machine combining high performance with very low footprint, running on NEC's EMMArchitecture integrated digital TV one-chip silicon solution.

NEC launched its family of single chip set top box solutions in 1998, which were the first products on the market integrating all the various components of digital TV. As such, transport stream demultiplexer, AV MPEG2 decoder and video encoder were all combined with a state of the art processor and a large number of peripherals. Since then, an ever growing family of devices has expanded the support for various world-wide standards. Adding Java technology support rapidly became a priority for NEC and Tao was identified as an ideal choice for a small footprint, high performance Java virtual machine.

Francis Charig, Tao's Chairman, said: "There was an enormous synergy between NEC's focus and drive toward a fully compliant DVB MHP reference platform and that of Tao. In addition to a strong roadmap, a proven expertise, and a clear sense of direction, the enthusiasm shown by NEC was an instant attraction to working with them to port the intent JTE to the EMMArchitecture development platform. Tao immediately regarded this as the highest priority objective. The performance of NEC's current EMMArchitecture, complemented by Tao's intent JTE, marks a turning point in the industry, decidedly making it the solution of choice for any company choosing to develop the cutting edge Java powered digital broadcast receiver."

Tao's deterministic operating system, Elate(RTM), works on the principle of a virtual processor. This enables Tao to port its environment to any target processor quickly and relatively effortlessly. Tao's intent JTE occupies an unrivalled small memory footprint, while providing complete PersonalJava(TM) functionality. The combination of NEC's EMMArchitecture with Tao's software components is ideally suited to the cost sensitive but flexible and feature-rich interactive digital TV environment.

Tetsuya Hikino, NEC Electronics UK Managing Director, said: "Working with Tao was a very refreshing experience. Not only were they able to demonstrate to us a product of incredible speed and small footprint capable of running fully fledged Java applications, but their efficiency made the process of working with them a real treat. All projects are always completed within tightly defined timescales. Moreover, they have been able to prove that they understand what customers want and allow for the flexibility needed to adapt to their rigorous demands."

The completion of the port of Tao's Elate and intent JTE onto the NEC EMMArchitecture-based STB development platform is the first key milestone on a collaborative roadmap to deliver a fully compliant DVB MHP reference platform.

NEC will be present at the IBC show in Amsterdam from September 8th - 12th 2000. Visit www.ibc.org for more information.

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About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) is a leading provider of Internet solutions, dedicated to meeting the specialised needs of its customers in the key computer, network and electron device fields through its three market-focused in-house companies: NEC Solutions, NEC Networks and NEC Electron Devices. NEC Corporation, with its in-house companies, employs more than 150,000 people world-wide and saw net sales of USD48,461 million (approx. GBP30 billion) in fiscal year 1999-2000. For further information, please visit the NEC home page at: http://www.nec-global.com/

About Tao

The Tao Group is an intellectual property generator and software organisation specialising in technologies for home and mobile networks. Incorporated in 1992, the Company provides leading edge products for the emerging, fast growth markets of intelligent consumer devices. The company's philosophy is based on providing powerful frameworks for use right across the range of networked appliances from smart phones to digital television, into which Tao's clients can build in their own branding and incorporate their own added value. Motorola and Sony are shareholders in Tao Group. Its customers include blue chip technology corporations across North America, Japan and Europe, and the intent toolkit is the applications foundation layer for the New Amiga. Headquartered in Reading, England, with offices in Tokyo and California, Tao has a high value, global patent portfolio and is the recipient of multiple industry awards, both for its technologies and for the rate of corporate growth. For more information about http://www.tao-group.com/

Java, PersonalJava and Truffle are trademarks of Sun Microsystems Inc. intent is a trademark of Tao Group. Elate is a registered trademark of Tao Group.

Editor's note: This press release is also available from EML's website http://www.eml.com/