San Francisco 05/07/96 — In a move to aggressively enter the graphical segment of Internet development, 2-D desktop imaging giant Adobe Systems Inc. introduced today several new Net-oriented graphical products and announced partnerships with Sun Microsystems Inc., Microsoft Corp., and AT&T.
Adobe announced that JavaSoft, an operating company of Sun, will license and distribute Adobe’s new 2-D imaging model, called Bravo, with the Java platform. Bravo is an API (application programming interface) based on Adobe’s PostScript imaging model that will allow developers to create platform-independent applications with images, line-art, and text in order to deliver high-resolution graphics over the World Wide Web and intranets. Bravo is being integrated with the Java platform now and will be available to developers by August, according to Adobe.
“We built our reputation on the desktop and we are moving it onto the Web-top with our partnership with JavaSoft,” said Adobe president Charles Geschke in San Francisco. “What Java has done for programming on the Internet, Bravo will do for graphics on the Internet.”
“[This partnership] is great news for Sun customers that we can now extend Java to the 2-D desktop. Where Java goes, Bravo will go,” said Sun executive Ed Zander.
Adobe also announced a collaboration with Microsoft to develop a universal font format that will combine TrueType and Type 1 technologies into a new standard called OpenType, which will appear in the Windows operating system and Adobe’s line of imaging products. It will also be freely licensed to other vendors.
In conjunction with the Bravo imaging framework, Adobe announced today its move into the interactive authoring tools arena with Vertigo. The authoring tool, which will be built on Bravo and will share a common architecture with Adobe’s line of authoring products such as Photoshop and Illustrator, is aimed at developers who want to produce video and audio applications for the Web and CD-ROMs. The Vertigo player will work as a plug-in for Netscape Navigator 2.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, enabling users to view interactive applications created with Vertigo authoring tools. Adobe did not specify when Vertigo will be available to users and developers.
Among the suite of Internet-targeted products announced today is a new authoring tool, Web Presenter, which will allow developers to create and publish content on the Web or an intranet as Portable Document Files (PDF). The drag-and-drop interface will allow users to create Web documents with graphics, links and video without knowing HTML. The product will not be released until 1997, but a beta version is now available for download from the Adobe site at http://www.adobe.com.
The product will be integrated with a future release of Adobe Acrobat code-named Amber, which will allow Web Presenter documents to be viewed and manipulated on the Web as Portable Document Files (PDF). Amber will allow forms created for the Web in PDF to be completed in much the same way as HTML forms now are, and will let developers create multilingual forms, including pages in Japanese, Arabic, French, German, and Spanish, which can be viewed without the use of special character software.
Web Presenter combined with Amber Acrobat will eliminate the barrier of language from the Web, said Geschke, since developers will be able to create pages in any language they choose in PDF, while users will be able to view them using the free Amber Acrobat viewer plug-in for Navigator 2.0 or Internet Explorer 3.0.
Amber Acrobat is currently available for download in a beta release from the company’s Web site at http://www.adobe.com, but Adobe will not specify its final release date.
Adobe also announced version 2.0 of Adobe PageMill, Web publishing software for Windows 95, Windows NT and Macintosh, which will be available in July. The new HTML authoring software will permit use of WYSIWYG tables and inline multimedia data types. PageMill 2.0 also works with Java, VRML, PDF and Shockwave applications. A forthcoming version will interoperate with Microsoft’s ActiveX as part of an effort to incorporate ActiveX into Adobe’s entire line of authoring products, said company representatives.
In addition to these products, Adobe announced an intranet-based print manager called PrintMill that will reside on a dedicated server and allow users to print to any printer on a network from their desktop browsers.
