AT&T connects with six print industry leaders to develop "Anytime, Anywhere" print on-demand.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 27, 1995--Six leading printing equipment and graphics software companies today announced plans to work with AT&T toward the goal of making their printing and software products compatible with the recently announced AT&T Network Demand Printing (NDP) Service.

AT&T has signed agreements with Agfa-Gevaert Group, Eastman Kodak Company, Indigo N.V., and Scitex Corp. Ltd., and memoranda of understanding with Adobe Systems Inc., and Quark Inc. The companies plan to evaluate and adapt their print technologies to operate with AT&T's planned service.

Last week AT&T and Xerox Corp. announced a market trial of a network-based printing service, which speeds the distribution and printing process for publishers, printers, and businesses that do high-volume printing to multiple locations. The service uses the AT&T Network to send documents to be printed at customer-specified locations on compatible printing equipment. AT&T's intelligent network monitors and manages the distribution process.

Customers will be able to use the service to distribute and print documents, such as books, manuals, brochures, price lists, and marketing materials.

Today the service connects with Xerox DocuTech Network Printers. AT&T plans to extend the reach of the service to work with printing equipment from Agfa, Indigo, Kodak, and Scitex. Additionally, AT&T plans to include software from Adobe Systems and Quark on its network-based service.

"We plan to offer an anytime, anywhere, on-demand printing service," said Jim Cosgrove, vice president and general manager of AT&T's Business Multimedia Services. "We envision the day when, with the touch of a button, a user simultaneously can send high-quality documents across our network to many locations to be printed on `user-specified' equipment from many different vendors."

Customers specify finishing requirements, such as the type of paper, binding, tabs, cover, stitching, choose the destination sites, and send the job into the network. The network distributes each job and automatically send a status message back to the originator when all print jobs have been completed.

"Businesses today face shorter time-to-market pressures, cost-reduction issues, and a critical need to rapidly access and distribute documents," Cosgrove explained. "Premises-based networks met past needs, but globalization, decentralization, and electronic bonding with customers, partners, and suppliers are forcing new communications paradigms."

With AT&T Network Demand Printing Service, customers will have the reliability and security of AT&T's network, a single point of contact for the service, and access to the best networking and printing technology without having to make large capital investments.

Additionally, customers will not be required to hire specialized technical experts to plan, implement, and administer this type of complex network. AT&T will assume that responsibility, and take care of capacity planning and network and software upgrades.

During the market trial the service supports black-and-white documents. Next year, AT&T expects to provide color capabilities, on-line document storage, and directory services - the first of which will list available destination sites.

Plans for software enhancements

AT&T plans to work with Adobe Systems and Quark to incorporate their software technologies onto AT&T's network imaging platform.

For example, AT&T could provide services based on Adobe(TM) Acrobat(TM) software. This would allow users to electronically distribute high-quality documents in one common format that preserves fidelity across virtually any computer platform or printing system. AT&T intends to support Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) and Adobe PostScript(TM) technology as its first supported formats.

Quark, a leading software developer for commercial publishing and graphics arts professionals, plans to put its multimedia viewer on AT&T's Service. This technology, due out later this year, allows users to view documents created in Quark's multimedia authoring system without having the authoring software resident on their desktop computer.

Plans for connecting printers

Agfa-Gevaert Group, a $4.5 billion imaging company with large market share in the graphic arts and photography markets, sees increasing requirements on the part of its customers to transfer and exchange high-resolution images and print-ready files around the world.

"Our customers will need to utilize high-speed, reliable networks in conjunction with our Mainstream server technology and Chromapress digital printing system to transfer, manage, and print high-resolution files. We see this agreement with AT&T as a way to advance the `distribute and print' concept for our customers worldwide," said Michael Paige, general manager of Agfa's Electronic Prepress Systems Group.

Indigo said its E-Print(R) 1000(TM) Digital Offset Color(TM) printing press would be an excellent endpoint to extend the reach of AT&T's Network Demand Printing Service. "We believe that AT&T, with its expertise in telecommunications innovation, is an outstanding match for Indigo," says Dr. Giora Yaron, Indigo's president.

Kodak's Imaging organization plans to link its Kodak LionHeart document imaging architecture to AT&T's Network Demand Printing Service. This effort is in concert with Kodak's imaging strategy to expand the reach of its technology through on-line access via wide-area telecommunications networks.

Ken Hoffman, Kodak's vice president and general manager of Office Imaging, said "the complementary strengths that Kodak and AT&T bring to this industry will change the way businesses work today, making them more competitive in the global marketplace."

Scitex, a worldwide leader in visual information communication solutions for the graphic design, pre-press, printing and publishing industry, expects this service to be an exciting opportunity for its customers. Scitex and AT&T will evaluate AT&T NDP Service applications for its vast array of digital color products ranging from digital capture to digital output on media such as film, paper, and CD-ROM.

David Ofek, corporate vice president of Marketing noted, "As the pioneer in full digital color workflow, we are looking forward to cooperating with AT&T in exploring options for providing added value services to Scitex customers. This underscores our commitment to openness and connectivity worldwide."

CONTACT: AT&T

Janet Stone, 908/234-7615

or

Adobe Systems

Rick Brown, 415/962-6060

or

Agfa-Gevaert

Peter Broderick, 508/658-5603

or

Indigo

Amy Hadad, 972-8-381-952

or

Kodak

Robert Salmon, 716/726-3144

or

Quark

Chuck Moozakis, 303/894-3204

or

Scitex

Oren Modai, 972-597-683

or

Xerox

Larry Vogel, 716/383-7948