Adobe Systems Introduces Adobe PrintGear; A New Printing Architecture

Defines New Level of Price/Performance and Functionality for the SOHO
Market

Mountain View, Calif., (September 11, 1995) (Nasdaq: ADBE) -- Adobe Systems
Incorporated today introduced the Adobe PrintGear printing architecture,
which will be incorporated in laser printers targeted to the emerging
Small Office Home Office (SOHO) marketplace. Establishing a new level of
price/performance and functionality, Adobe PrintGear architecture was
designed to address the requirements of SOHO users. It delivers dramatic
improvements in speed, quality, shareability and price/performance.

"Adobe PrintGear is an important component of our comprehensive printing
strategy," said Steve MacDonald, senior vice president and general manager
of Adobe's Systems Products Division. "With Adobe PrintGear, we have the
opportunity to extend our family of printing technologies down to the
rapidly growing SOHO marketplace, complementing our leadership position
with Adobe PostScript technology."

Booklets, Two-sided Printing and More

Small office users of Adobe PrintGear printing technology will be able to
easily produce a variety of professional-quality documents, benefiting
from the most comprehensive feature set available today. This includes
N-up printing, allowing users to print up to 16 pages per sheet. The Adobe
PrintGear architecture also features standard and customizable watermarks,
two-sided (duplex) printing and the ability to print posters and booklets.
A bi-directional status monitor allows communication to and from the
printer, and an intuitive graphical user interface makes the Adobe
PrintGear architecture easy to use. To help users create visually rich
professional and informal documents, Adobe PrintGear includes an
accessories CD that includes 78 top-quality fonts and an interactive
training guide, "How to Look Good on Paper," that contains tips,
techniques and samples for creating compelling documents.

Shareability

In addition to providing outstanding printing speed, high reliability and
the level of quality associated with Adobe, the Adobe PrintGear
architecture addresses the issue of shareability -- the ability to meet
the changing needs of a growing business. Small businesses that anticipate
growth and the need to share printers, can expect their Adobe PrintGear
printer to perform equally well as both a direct-connect printer and a
shared printer for small workgroups, unlike Windows "dumb" printers, which
can be problematic to share. Adobe PrintGear architecture combines the
low-cost benefit of Windows "dumb" printers with the shareability
characteristics of traditional printer architectures. "With its
combination of industry-leading price/performance and functionality, we
believe the new Adobe PrintGear printing architecture will redefine the
standard for SOHO printing solutions," said MacDonald. "We've leveraged
our 13 years of experience as a developer and innovator of printing and
imaging technologies to build a new printing technology specifically for
SOHO users."

New Imaging Architecture

Adobe PrintGear, which includes host- and printer-based printing systems
software, features a RISC-like architecture in which a small set of image
operators are supported in the printer. The key to this architecture is
the new 50 MHz Adobe PrintGear Imaging Processor, a high-speed rendering
processor that allows the Adobe PrintGear architecture to deliver very
high speed performance at dramatically lower costs than competing
controllers.

Adobe PrintGear features Adobe Memory Booster, an advanced printer
technology that significantly reduces the amount of memory printers
require, while maintaining performance and output quality. In most cases,
printers that employ the Adobe Memory Booster technology, require a third
less memory than traditional printers. In addition to reducing memory
requirements, Adobe Memory Booster technology increases printer
reliability, enabling printers based on Adobe PrintGear to print even
complex pages, which traditional printer architectures may fail to print.
Broad compatibility with application software is assured through a
printer-based (Printer Control Language) PCL 4 emulation with automatic
language switching, ensuring trouble-free printing from the MS-DOS
environment.

Availability

Printers incorporating the Adobe PrintGear architecture are expected to
begin shipping later this year. Prices for products based on Adobe
PrintGear are expected to fall into the $299-$999 range. Adobe plans to
develop Adobe PrintGear technology for use in Macintosh printers.

Adobe Systems Incorporated, founded in 1982, is headquartered in Mountain
View, California. 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
applications 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.
 
 =========================================================
 From the 'New Product News' Electronic News Service on...
 AOL (Keyword = New Products) and Delphi (GO COMP PROD)
 =========================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the
 company/author mentioned. For additional details, please
 contact them directly at the address/phone# indicated.
 Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
 =========================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  USA
 Email: rbakerpc@delphi.com  -or- RBakerPC (on AOL/Delphi)
 =========================================================
