| Microsoft Windows is rapidly invading Apple's turf of
color desktop publishing, judging from new hardware and
software shown at the Seybold Desktop Publishing
Conference in September. Several companies are porting
major Mac products to Windows 3.1. For example, Quark (Denver, CO) announced that it had begun shipping to distributors its long-awaited Windows version of QuarkXPress, a desktop publishing program now popular on the Mac. Although users have access to rival applications (e.g., Frame Technology's FrameMaker for Windows), QuarkXPress has been an established tool among Mac users, especially professional desktop publishing bureaus, since version 3.0 was introduced in 1990. SuperMac Technology (Sunnyvale, CA), a company that used to make only Mac products, is releasing five new products for the Windows platform. Among them are a 24-bit-color accelerated-video card that uses proprietary chips originally developed for the Mac version and a relatively low-cost color-proofing system built around a dye-sublimation printer and color-calibration software. The new SuperMac products for PCs will be marketed under the SuperMatch label — not because SuperMac fears its name would deter PC users, but because the company doesn't want to upset Apple. In other cross-platform developments, RasterOps (Santa Clara, CA) said it will incorporate Adobe Systems' (Mountain View, CA) newly announced PixelBurst graphics coprocessor in add-on boards not only for the Mac but also for PC and Sparcstation platforms. Adobe's PixelBurst, an application-specific IC that is said to accelerate high-resolution screened images up to 10 times faster than software-based rendering, will also be sold to makers of PostScript printers and imagesetters. Adobe also revealed a joint-development agreement with Silicon Graphics (Mountain View, CA) to port Adobe Photoshop to Silicon Graphics' Unix-based Indigo RISC workstations. Adobe, which is believed to be developing a Windows version of Photoshop, plans to ship its first Unix port of the program in 1993. Copyright 1994-1997 BYTE |