Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge[R] is Part of Mount Everest Climb

Sonic Foundry (AMEX: SFO), a leading developer and marketer of digital audio software for the Windows[R] platform, reported today that its Sound Forge audio media editing package is being used by MountainZone.com to process streaming media from the 1999 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition to Mount Everest.

The leading mountain sports Web site, Mountainzone.com, is the official Web site of the Expedition, with exclusive rights to report the climb on the Web and online services. This is actually the third consecutive year that MountainZone.com will provide expansive coverage of a Mount Everest climb, including daily telephone dispatches and digital messages transmitted in real time via satellite telephone from climbers ascending the world's highest mountain.

MountainZone.com selected Sound Forge 4.5 because it incorporates a wide range of processes, tools, and effects for manipulating audio, including advanced video-sync features and powerful batch processing functionality that makes pre-processing streaming content delivery fast and simple. Using Sound Forge 4.5, MountainZone can take all of the media beamed from the top of Everest each day, and rather than process each piece individually, can assemble them all in a single folder, and then run scripts that will process the media for streaming and uploading to the site.

"Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge will play a vital role in our coverage of the 1999 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition," said Peter Potterfield, editor and publisher of MountainZone.com. "We particularly appreciate the software's batch processing capabilities, as they'll enable us to save a great deal of time each day processing the various media clips we receive."

"We are both excited and honored to be a part of this historic event," said Rimas Buinevicius, Chairman and C.E.O. of Sonic Foundry. "MountainZone.com's selection of Sound Forge 4.5 to support this cybercast effort is an important endorsement for our technology."

MountainZone.com's exclusive coverage began on March 15 when the climbers left Kathmandu for the mountain and will continue throughout the trek to Everest base camp, up to the summit, and back down the mountain. The attempt on the summit is estimated to fall between May 10 and 15, with coverage ending when the climbers return home, around June 15.

To follow the progress of the 1999 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition, visit www.mountainzone.com.

About MountainZone.com

Launched in March of 1996, MountainZone.com, the leading mountain sports Web site, has created one of the Internet's most successful virtual communities and is an expert in online vertical marketing. In January of 1999, USA Today rated the Webbie-award winning MountainZone.com one of the top two winter sports sites. From first-hand interviews with Olympic gold medalist Picabo Street and IMAX Everest star Ed Viesturs to multimedia cybercasts of the '97 and '98 Mount Everest climbs, MountainZone.com offers visitors more than 5,000 outdoor retail products and more than 50,000 pages of award-winning mountain sports news, interviews, and photos at www.mountainzone.com. MountainZone.com and its sister Web site SkiResorts.com are produced and owned by The Zone Network, a privately held Web publishing company based in Seattle, Washington.

About the Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition

Eric Simonson, 43, is the expedition leader and owner of International Mountain Guides/Expedition 8000, a high altitude guide service. Simonson has conducted more than 70 expeditions worldwide, including 20 to the Himalayas and seven to Mount Everest, which he summited by the North Ridge in 1991. Larry Johnson, 52, is the Expedition Coordinator and Marketing Director for Stackpole Books, publisher of a wide range of books on climbing and mountaineering.