SAN DIEGO -- Wave Three Software Inc., a leading developer of IP communication software, today announced that the University of Southern California (USC) purchased and is deploying its Session(TM) Communication Software and Session(TM) Conference Server Software community-wide making it available to more than 45,000 on-campus and extended community members. USC's implementation of Session software marks a turning-point in the higher education market, where USC is the first university to extend enriched communication capabilities beyond fixed conference rooms and select faculty and staff desktops.

USC is one of the world's leading private research universities and the oldest research university in Southern California. The implementation of Session software provides USC students, family, faculty, staff and extended partners with a next-generation communication solution: software that performs Voice over IP, Video over IP and data collaboration over standard desktop and laptop computers. The software allows students and faculty to communicate with peers and each other over the university's broadband IP network, and also allows parents to communicate with students from their home cable modems or DSL connection. Since starting the fall 2003 semester, more than 1,000 students, family, faculty and staff have registered for Session.

Phil Chiaramonte, associate senior vice president of auxiliary services, USC, comments on the university's implementation of Session software: "Higher education is often the early-adopter of scalable 'next-generation' technologies. I believe in the promise of IP communication and believe that Session is the highest quality solution I have seen in the market to-date. As a community, we are excited to bring our diverse constituents together with a single communication solution offering audio, video and collaborative tools. We see potential benefits in several areas of campus activity from increased sharing of knowledge between faculty, students and staff to more efficient interaction between students and our administrative offices."

The community-wide Session deployment follows on the completion of a successful pilot program held during the 2003 spring semester. The pilot, which involved more than 80 students in on-campus housing, allowed USC to evaluate student and staff demand for Session, its impact on network bandwidth and IT resources, and support requirements for a full-scale deployment. Results from a survey of pilot participants showed that Session is easy to install and user friendly, is a useful communication tool and would be used regularly to contact teachers, friends and family if deployed campus-wide.

"Session software is amazing! I planned SnowBall, an annual dance at USC, with two other students and the software was instrumental in helping us collaborate, especially the ShareApp(TM) program," said Melissa How, USC undergraduate student.

Wave Three licenses Session software to customers in the university, medical and research markets. The company focuses on those markets because of their distributed campus environments, need for effective communication, access to IP networks and willingness to adopt new technologies. Session is currently in use or evaluation at over 50 universities across the United States.

"Session has a strong value proposition for universities like USC, that can use their existing networks to deliver enhanced services to students, faculty, staff and parents," said Robert Randall, president of Wave Three. "As we continue to roll out Session to additional universities, that value proposition will increase as one university community is connected to another."

Wave Three Software Inc.