Adobe and Netscape to bring commercial publishing to the Internet.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 28, 1995--Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBE) and Netscape Communications Corp. today announced joint plans to enable commercial Internet publishing capabilities that are not possible through currently available products.

By integrating and extending functionality offered by their respective product lines, the two companies will be able to offer a complete set of technologies that support secure, electronic transactions across the Internet while also allowing publishers to author and distribute graphically rich content that large audiences can access.

As part of the joint plans, the two companies will integrate the Internet navigation and electronic commerce capabilities provided by Netscape with the commercial quality authoring and universal document distribution capabilities provided by Adobe. This will include work to combine functionality offered by Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), an open, searchable file format that preserves document fidelity across all major computer platforms and printers, with Netscape's line of Internet software products.

The integration work is designed to allow commercial publishers who use Adobe software products daily for the production of highly formatted, printed materials to easily use the same tools to provide quality content in electronic form on the Internet. In conjunction with Netscape technology and PDF, publishers will now have a commercial solution for electronic information distribution in a universal format.

"Adobe technology, such as the PostScript language, provided new ways for people to create rich printed documents and set new computer industry standards," said James Clark, chairman, Netscape Communications. "By combining Netscape and Adobe technologies, we can bring that same quality and creative power to on-line information, allowing publishers to leverage their existing tools and quality standards in a way that perfectly compliments Internet publishing via HTML."

Many corporations, government agencies and professional publishers, including J.P. Morgan; Time Life Inc.; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; TimesFax, a division of The New York Times Information Services Group; and Springer Verlag New York Inc., are adopting PDF for Internet publishing. By integrating Adobe and Netscape technologies, such as Netscape Publishing System which manages all aspects of an electronic publishing house, businesses can make professionally published content more directly accessible while opening up new business opportunities.

"Our customers have very successfully harnessed the power offered by desktop publishing tools to expand the publishing industry and create new expectations for creativity and quality," said John Warnock, chairman and CEO, Adobe Systems. "Our relationship with Netscape reflects our commitment to keep providing tools that enable the publishing industry to expand to new frontiers."

Roadmap Specifics

The companies disclosed a four step roadmap for delivering a complete suite of Internet publishing tools. First, the Macintosh and Windows versions of Netscape Navigator 1.1 will support the Acrobat Weblink software plug-in, a free add-on application from Adobe that allows Acrobat documents to link to other documents on the Internet. The companies will also collaborate on a future version of Netscape Navigator that will seamlessly view documents in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), the open, cross-platform file format created by Acrobat software. Additional integration efforts will include work on Netscape server software to provide quick access to PDF documents across the Internet, allowing users to download portions of PDF files at a time for faster on screen viewing. Lastly, Adobe will extend its authoring applications to more fully support the ability to import and export PDF files and will provide the ability to output to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) in a future version of Adobe PageMaker.

The announcement has generated positive reactions from the publishing community. "We have been working closely with both Netscape and Adobe to achieve our charter of developing innovative new media information products," said Stephen Lake, senior vice president, Reuters New Media. "The flexibility and security of the Netscape Worldwide Web publishing platform and the richness of new media content we can create through Acrobat allows us to create new products such as the Reuters Photojournalism Magazine. The ability to download portions of a PDF file across the Web will allow us to create even richer documents."

"The fact that Netscape and Adobe are coordinating development activity is truly exciting," said Robert D. Ingle, vice president/New Media for Knight-Ridder. "Like many publishers, Knight-Ridder has been active in exploring information dissemination via the Internet. However, to date, we've been missing both control over formatting and a commercially viable way to distribute that information. The combination of Adobe and Netscape gives us the full suite of tools to move our efforts from exploration to commercial deployment."

"We chose Acrobat because TimesFax is a branded product, and it was essential to provide context in addition to content, preserving the look and feel complete with the typefaces used in the New York Times," said Patricia Ecke, publisher, TimesFax. "Producing it in HTML just didn't give us that capability. The announcement between Adobe and Netscape reinforces our decision to use PDF, and gives us additional tools to take further advantage of the World Wide Web publishing opportunity." The TimesFax World Wide Web edition is an eight-page digest of news from the New York Times that is made available in PDF format via the World Wide Web.

Netscape Communications Corp. is a premier provider of open software to enable people and companies to exchange information and conduct commerce over the Internet and other global networks. The company was founded in April 1994 by Dr. James H. Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics Inc., a Fortune 500 computer systems company; and Marc Andreessen, creator of the NCSA Mosaic research prototype for the Internet. Privately held, Netscape Communications Corp. is based in Mountain View.

Adobe Systems Inc., founded in 1982, is headquartered in Mountain View. 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 and publishing suppliers, and markets a line of powerful, but easy to use, products for home and small business users. Adobe has subsidiaries in Europe, Asia and the Pacific Rim serving a worldwide network of dealers and distributors. Adobe's 1994 revenue was approximately $598 million.

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NOTE TO EDITORS: Adobe, PageMaker, PostScript, Weblink and Acrobat are trademarks of Adobe Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Netscape Communications, Netscape, Netscape Publishing System, and Netscape Navigator are trademarks of Netscape Communications Corp.

CONTACT: Adobe Systems Inc., Mountain View

Rick Brown, 415/962-6060

or http://www.adobe.com/

or

Netscape Communications Corp.

Rosanne Siino, 415/528-2619