Birmingham, UK (IPEX - Hall 6, Stand A20) – April 4-11, 2006 – As part of its ongoing efforts to develop cost-effective tools for production automation and PDF quality management, Enfocus announces its technology partnership with France-based Alwan Color Expertise. As a silver member of the new Enfocus Technology Partner Program, Alwan will be using the PitStop Automate SDK to integrate Alwan CMYK Optimizer® with Enfocus’ new automation platform. The collaboration of the two companies will enable the creation of PDF files that are not only fully checked, preflighted and certified, but also compliant with chosen color and print standards specifications, ready for proof or print. PitStop Automate Software Developer Kit (SDK) PitStop Automate helps graphic designers, ad agencies, as well as printers and publishers, to introduce production automation at an affordable price, increasing productivity and output consistency. The graphical interface is easy to use, and integrates closely with Acrobat® Distiller®. PitStop Automate also includes Enfocus’ renowned PDF editing and preflighting tools, as well as automation functionality. As part of the new Technology Partner Program, a full range of software development kits (SDK’s) become available. With PitStop Library SDK, StatusCheck SDK, PitStop Server SDK and the new PitStop Automate SDK, which Alwan will be taking advantage of, Enfocus is opening up its technologies for other developers to benefit from. Through this new SDK and new partnerships, the company aims to create an automation platform within which color proofing, imposition, file transfer, image manipulation and many other applications can be integrated. Says Tom Peire, Director of Corporate Marketing at Enfocus: “Our company has a strong record of technology partnerships that have made our own, and our partners’ solutions more powerful, and our combined customers more successful. Up until now, users only really had two options: either to piece together a workflow solution themselves by combining individual software packages to match their needs, or invest in a high-end workflow system. With PitStop Automate, and through our Technology Partner Program, we take a different approach by offering a truly open system that allows other solutions to plug in to create high-level automation at an affordable price. We believe there are other solutions in the market that would also benefit from such a partnership to build a better value proposition for users.” Color compliancy with CMYK Optimizer® Alwan CMYK Optimizer® is a tool for color preflighting, standardization and optimization for CMYK separations and data. It helps pre-media and prepress companies produce printable files, and allows printers to control and improve the printability of the files they receive by optimizing their separation for the destination process. The files made compliant using CMYK Optimizer® generate reproducible proofs as well as plates and cylinders with improved printability on the press. Elie Khoury, Managing Director at Alwan Color Expertise, explains: “With both our organizations being considered leaders in non-proprietary PDF technology, the link is obvious. In fact, users have been combining our two systems by means of hot folders for some time already, creating simple automation via a hot folder cascade of PDF files on their desktops. When Enfocus approached us to forge a more formal, strategic technology partnership, we didn’t hesitate. “The partnership allows us to integrate CMYK Optimizer with PitStop Automate to create a more useable and intuitive interface,” Khoury continues. “The user can set the system to certain PDF specifications or profiles determined by the printer. My vision, and that of Enfocus, is to build fully automated standard workflows that allow users to produce and reproduce files that are compliant to International or national standards, with a single click of a button. With this approach PitStop Automate is becoming a solution which compares favorably to large, custom-made systems – but at a much more affordable price.”