AGM Statement, June 2003

Posted: 18/06/2003

At today's AGM, Vic Steel, Chairman of Forbidden Technologies plc, made the following comments:

"Since the results of 29th April the company has continued to make progress.

We have now begun to ship and install beta test compression systems to our partners so that they can achieve scaleable output for their customers. One such system is being installed at BT Broadcast Services for mobile phone video promotion and another two will be installed at Cantos to service customers in corporate communications.

A training course in compression for partners has been developed and training has been implemented for our Siteseer partner in Japan and for the Siteseer UK business. In the UK Siteseer will focus on developing individual celebrities and personalities to use Forbidden technology on their own websites for personal promotion.

I would like to emphasise the importance and prominence that our website (http://www.forbidden.co.uk/) has achieved as a dynamic shop window for our company and its products. Its constantly updated news pages and well maintained variety of product demonstrations makes it a significant attraction to anyone interested in video compression. In the past six months it has had nearly 600,000 hits, and has helped us to increase our global mindshare and to move up the ratings list of popular search engines. In the last month we have had 120,000 hits, up over four times from the same period last year.

On the technology development front we continue to make excellent strides ahead of others. We now have a data rate sensing feature which enables automatic selection of our videos as broadband or narrowband versions appropriate to each receiver. With broadband users now up above the one million mark in the UK this is a potentially very valuable tool. We now have an excellent product range that can be customised to individual needs and can cater for narrowband, midband or broadband requirements.

Good progress has been made along our development programme for achieving live compression, which we are now demonstrating.

We have now developed a good range of products and features, we are increasingly seen as serious players in video compression and are getting increasing 'traction' with companies who are potentially big users of our technology.

We will continue to be conservative with cash so that we are known to be a long-term participant in a major world market as it grows."