FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

XPLAIN AND BYSE LAUNCH DevDepot JAPAN

Westlake Village, CA and Sapporo, Japan — April 2, 1997 — Xplain
Corporation who operates DevDepot, today announced that it is
launching DevDepot Japan with noted Japanese marketing and sales
organization, BYSE, Inc.

Until today, Japanese MacOS developers have had to work hard to find MacOS
development tools. In fact, they had to work twice as hard because all of
the literature about the products was in English — battling a language
barrier. Now, DevDepot Japan, a fully localized version of
DevDepot in the United States (DevDepot US), solves that.

DevDepot Japan will publish marketing literature, provide order
fulfillment and customer service through a Japanese office — all in native
Japanese. DD-J will not only carry best selling English versions of
products, but also a significant number of localized Japanese versions.

As its first major advertising campaign, DevDepot Japan will include
a full color catalog in each issue of MacTech Japan (which debuts in Japan
this month). DevDepot Japan will make tools more broadly available
to the Japanese market. And, like DevDepot launched initially in
the U.S., DD-J is focused on the MacOS developer community providing easy
access to tools, books and utilities.

“The Macintosh has around double the market share in Japan that it does in
the U.S. Apple sells about half as many machines in Japan as they do in
the U.S., so it was an obvious extension to DevDepot.” said Neil
Ticktin, CEO of Xplain Corporation. “DevDepot already has tens of
thousands of customers in 50+ countries, but there’s nothing like being
catered to in one’s native language. For years, BYSE has been operating
the Apple Developer Catalog in Japan — so they were a natural partner.”

“Xplain Corporation, which has achieved success in the Macintosh developer
market with MacTech magazine and DevDepot in U.S., is the best
partner for us to develop and extend the Macintosh market in Japan.” said
H. Hattori, President of Byse Inc. “The launch of DevDepot Japan
will bring the developer community, Xplain and BYSE considerable benefit.”

DevDepot Japan will be open for business on April 1, 1997. More
information will be available on the DevDepot Japan web site at
(http://www.byse.co.jp/devdepotj).

Corporate Backgrounds:

Xplain Corporation publishes MacTech(tm) Magazine (https://www.mactech.com),
the MacTech CD-ROM(tm) series, THINK Reference(tm), operates Developer
Depot(tm) (http://www.devdepot.com), and provides custom publishing
services. Founded in 1984, the company has its offices in Westlake Village,
California. MacTech Magazine was formerly called MacTutor and began
publishing in November, 1984. For more information on Xplain Corporation or
any of its products/services, call the main offices at 805-494-9797, fax at
805-494-9798, send an e-mail to info@xplain.com, or send snail mail to PO
Box 5200, Westlake Village, CA 91359-5200, USA.

Founded in 1990, BYSE Inc., taking an advantage of backup from one of the
most capable system developers, B.U.G., Inc., undertakes various
computer-related business from system development, import and sales of
computer products, to advertisement production by DTP. For more
information on BYSE Inc. or any of its products/services, refer to
(http://www.byse.co.jp), send an e-mail to webmaster@byse.co.jp or send
snail mail to Mitsui-Seimei Sapporo Kyodo Bldg. 4F, N4, W5, Chuo-ku,
Sapporo 060 Japan.

Contact:
Susan Worley
Marketing, DevDepot
Phone: 805-494-9797
Fax: 805-494-9798
(marketing@devdepot.com)

Yukiko Fujiwara
BYSE, Inc.
Phone: 81-11-210-7080
Fax: 81-11-242-8504
(yukiko@bug.co.jp)

****

All contents are Copyright 1984-1997 by Xplain Corporation. All rights
reserved. MacTech NOW, MacDev-1, MacTech, MacTech Magazine, MacTech CD-ROM,
MacTech Japan, THINK Reference, DevDepot, DevDepot Japan,
Sprocket, JavaTech, WebTech, BeTech, and the MacTutorMan are trademarks of
Xplain Corporation. Other trademarks and copyrights appearing in this
printing remain the property of their respective holders and are hereby
recognized.