Adobe Systems and Agfa to Offer First Workflow Software Standard to Connect Multiple Vendor Prepress Products.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 28, 1995--Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) and Agfa announced today that together they will publish the first joint software development specification designed to unite disparate, off-the-shelf prepress applications in both the Adobe OPEN and Agfa Mainstream automated prepress production workflow environments.

Scheduled to be available in the second quarter of 1995, the resulting specification will provide third-party developers with a standard means to create products simultaneously for both Adobe and Agfa systems rather than specifically for one environment or the other. High-volume prepress operations will increase productivity by automating the management, transfer and routing of electronic prepress tasks using familiar applications within a single workflow environment. A common workflow language will increase the application options available to users of both OPEN and Mainstream systems.

"Our alliance with Agfa makes a signifcant statement about the future of the desktop prepress market," said Jim Betlyon, general manager of the Adobe Prepress Group. "With the joint integration specification, both companies will offer the industry the equivalent of a common gauge train track for prepress on which the trains are raw pages moving rapidly and consistently from station to station toward the final destination on a printing press, imagesetter, CD ROM or Internet address."

The prepress stage is the final phase of the print production process in which color separation and publication assembly take place. The need for major productivity increases has spawned an emerging market category known as prepress workflow automation. To date, only Adobe and Agfa offer software solutions for the desktop platform.

Both OPEN and Mainstream are fundamentally modular, server-based system architectures in which the production processes such as trapping, digital imposition and image replacement can be automated. While the two differ in their ultimate approach to workflow automation and therefore have different feature sets, both seek to streamline prepress procedures and eliminate application redundancy without operator intervention.

OPEN is an Apple Macintosh-based environment that links off-the-shelf prepress applications running on Macintosh, Windows and Windows NT systems. Agfa Mainstream is a Unix-based prepress production server running on a Sun Microsystems SPARCstation.

"Agfa Mainstream supports `on-shore' prepress applications running on the Mainstream host server and `off-shore' applications running on networked workstations," said Rene Delbar, director of marketing for Image Processing Systems, Agfa-Gevaert NV. "With the joint integration specification, Mainstream users will have access to any available OPEN-compliant software product as a Mainstream off-shore component. We strongly believe that our cooperative effort will help the prepress industry advance to higher levels of workflow automation and productivity."

The joint specification will be based upon the Adobe OPEN Aware integration specification so that commonly available software programs can be integrated into the OPEN and Mainstream environments. The software protocols will allow a computer application to receive commands from the OPEN or Mainstream system, execute those commands on any given electronic file, and communicate back to the respective system regarding the job's status. Over 16 leading electronic prepress and computer companies are already developing applications that conform to the core specification.

Agfa will continue to use its Modular Prepress Server Specification (MPRSS) as the interface for on-shore Mainstream applications.

For more information about Adobe OPEN software, the OPEN Aware Developer program or to obtain information about other Adobe prepress products, customers should call the Adobe Prepress Group at 800/685-OPEN.

For more information about Agfa Mainstream, customers should contact 800/227-2780. Software developers can obtain the Agfa MPRSS specification in Adobe Acrobat format from the Desktop Publishing Vendor B forum on the CompuServe on-line service.

The Agfa-Gevaert Group is a leading worldwide manufacturer of imaging products and systems with annual worldwide sales of $4.5 billion. Agfa-Gevaert manufactures and markets products and systems for the electronic and photographic prepress, medical and technical diagnostic, and amateur and professional photographic markets. Headquartered in Europe, Agfa-Gevaert is fully owned by Bayer AG. In the United States, Agfa operates as a division of Bayer, with headquarters in Ridgefield park, N.J. Bayer, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Penn., has major businesses in chemicals, health care and imaging technologies. Bayer employs 22,000 people and had sales of $7.1 billion in 1994.

The Adobe Prepress Group provides prepress professionals and graphic artists with an integrated family of electronic prepress tools: PressWise advanced electronic imposition software; TrapWise, the leading electronic trapping package; Color Central, the leading Open Prepress Interface (OPI) print and image server for the graphic arts market; PrePrint Pro, an integrated preflight and separations tool; and Adobe OPEN electronic prepress production software. The Adobe Prepress Group is located in Seattle, Wash.

Adobe Systems Incorporated, founded in 1982, is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. Adobe develops, markets and supports computer software products and technologies that enable users to create, display, print and communicate electronic documents. The company licenses its technology to major computer, printing and publishing suppliers, and markets a line of application software and type products for authoring visually rich documents. Additionally, the company markets a line of powerful, but easy to use, products for home and small business users. Adobe has subsidiaries in Europe and the Pacific Rim, serving a worldwide network of dealers and distributors. Adobe's 1994 revenue was approximately $598 million.

-0-

Note to Editors:

Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, OPEN, OPI, Color Central, PrePrint, PostScript, PressWise and TrapWise are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated or its subsidiaries and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Agfa is a registered trademark and Mainstream is a trademark of Agfa-Gevaert AG. Windows and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Sun and SPARCstation are registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems Computer Company. All other brand or product names are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective holders.

CONTACT: Adobe Systems Incorporated

Barbara Burke, 206/938-8827

or

Agfa Division of Bayer

Agfa Graphics System

Kelly Morrissey, 508/658-0200 x5691

or fax, 508/658-8619