Sonic Foundry’s Mediasite Live to Play Integral Role In The Ohio State University’s ‘Living Laboratory’

MADISON, WIS – March 29, 2004 – Sonic Foundry Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO), a leading rich media solutions company, today announced its award-winning rich media presentation system, Mediasite Live™, is a key technology in The Ohio State University’s new state-of-the-art facility created to give students, faculty and staff hands-on experience using and evaluating cutting-edge technologies that enhance teaching and learning. Sonic Foundry joins Apple Computer, HP and Polycom as founding technology partners in the Digital Union initiative, illustrating the company’s rapid rise in the higher education community.

Designed as a living laboratory, the Digital Union will support innovation, collaboration and presentation, while providing Ohio State with reliable data for making informed investment decisions across Ohio’s flagship campus. In addition to a Mediasite Live system, the fully networked Digital Union currently features a video conferencing suite, video theater, plasma screens, cameras, a multimedia production facility, wireless technology meeting areas, demonstration areas with various tablet PCs, laptops and handheld devices, integrated printers and scanners and a digital asset management system. New technologies will be routinely added and removed as Digital Union staff gathers user feedback to the technologies, required training and work processes.

“The Digital Union will serve as an incubator for institutional innovation, and a showcase for best practices in technology-enabled learning environments,” said Stephen Acker, director of Learning Technologies Research and Innovation for Ohio State. “The project will greatly improve the risk-reward ratio for the current and future technology investments needed to create the most optimized environment for teaching and learning, both on campus and at a distance. We are pleased to have Mediasite Live as one of the anchor technologies of the Digital Union and predict that faculty involved in distance education, who need the ability to rapidly record, stream and archive their lectures, will find many uses for it.”

Other potential applications for Mediasite Live include recording and distributing presentations from guest speakers at the Digital Union and other campus locations, doctoral candidates who incorporate rich media into their dissertations and online training for faculty and staff.

Through its participation in the Digital Union, Sonic Foundry will gain insight on emerging academic needs, leading to the development and refinement of its line of rich media products. The company also will benefit from opportunities to interact with other hardware and software vendors in a neutral academic environment and build awareness among those who use, recommend and purchase technology on campus. The Digital Union also will serve as a beta-testing site, providing valuable feedback from end-users’ real-world experiences with the developing technologies.

“The Digital Union is an exciting initiative that brings together the key disciplines that underscore the development of digitally integrated systems for education,” said James Dias, vice president of marketing and sales for Sonic Foundry. “Our direct participation in this program will create a dialogue with the leading practitioners and designers in the field, and illuminate our vision for the Mediasite platform.”

Mediasite Live is a complete system to automatically record, distribute, archive and view instructor-led presentations. Its unique dual-channel, real-time recorder captures audio, video and all RGB-source graphics to create high quality rich media content.

About Sonic Foundry®, Inc.
Founded in 1991, Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO) is a provider of rich media communications technology for the enterprise. The company’s high-performance rich media presentation systems are trusted by Fortune 500 companies, education institutions and government agencies for a variety of critical communication needs. Sonic Foundry is based in Madison, Wis. For more information about Sonic Foundry, visit the company’s Web site at www.sonicfoundry.com.

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