Ipex – Birmingham, England – April 5, 2006 – EFI, the world leader in digital controllers, superwide format printers and inks and print management solutions for commercial and enterprise printing, and Agfa Graphics, a world leader in prepress solutions for the printing and publishing industries, today announced their collaboration to help ensure mutual customers’ success in migrating to an offset/digital hybrid environment. Medium and large commercial printing operations will benefit from the integration of the companies’ solutions designed to help the printing operations achieve higher quality, greater efficiency and stronger customer relationships. The companies’ collaboration will be demonstrated at EFI Stand D20 in Hall 9. There are more than 14 million users of Fiery controllers in the world, benefiting from Fiery power, performance, and speed, as well as unmatched color output, extensive variable data printing support, and superior workflow management. With the EFI/Agfa collaboration, :ApogeeX Commercial users can readily automate production all the way through digital printing in one smooth process – and utilize EFI Print MIS Solutions (Hagen) to provide the foundation for their management processes. The collaboration between EFI and Agfa enables :ApogeeX Commercial users to deliver a more accurate, more efficient production workflow – from capturing the designer's original design intent to real-time estimating, accounting and billing, to producing brilliant digital output with Fiery-driven high quality print engines. :ApogeeX Commercial is a fully integrated, prepress production system. A single graphical user interface provides easy access to all jobs. While it simplifies production, it provides the operator with an extensive array of sophisticated tools to interact with jobs at any time. With :ApogeeX Commercial, Agfa delivers the benefits of PDF, JDF, and Digital Film. It connects prepress production with business processes and other “JDF aware” applications, such as EFI solutions, for seamless, end-to-end workflow automation. For maximum automation, JDFConnect and JMFConnect options can be added to :ApogeeX Commercial so that customers can use the EFI Prepress connector to smoothly integrate :ApogeeX Commercial with EFI Hagen, among the most popular EFI Print MIS solutions. This integration enables real-time reporting of job progress, including number of proofs and plates made for cost-calculation and/or tracking purposes. Jobs can be easily updated to track to deadlines. Through JDF intake, prepress tasks are defined and jobs are automatically processed. To track job progress and calculate costs, JMF can be added for real-time reporting of page revisions, number of proofs and plates made, incl. plate remakes, back into EFI Hagen MIS system. “With :ApogeeX, Agfa Graphics leads innovation in workflow automation, connectivity and ease-of-use, so our partnership with EFI to integrate Fiery, the industry’s leading and most innovative digital controller, and EFI Print MIS, the industry’s leading management information software, makes perfect sense,” said Angelo Manno, worldwide marketing manager for Agfa Graphics’ :ApogeeX. “Many of our customers use the Fiery to drive their high quality digital printers, and now :ApogeeX users can automate pre-press production all the way through digital printing in one smooth process. We look forward to continued efforts with EFI that create even more benefits to our mutual customers.” “With the EFI/Agfa collaboration, :ApogeeX users are able to integrate Fiery-driven digital devices into their native pre-press workflow to output proofs and short-run on-demand print production,” said Kathy Wilson, EFI director of server product marketing and strategy. “And EFI Print MIS enables :ApogeeX users to manage and track job information to improve cost efficiency and increase profits. We look forward to continued efforts with Agfa to deliver technology innovation to our mutual customers.” Today :ApogeeX Commercial customers can seamlessly integrate with EFI Hagen Print MIS via the EFI Prepress Connector and Agfa’s :ApogeeX JDFConnect & JMFConnect options. EFI Print MIS Solutions provide businesses with a process foundation that includes real-time, shared access to the baseline information required for day-to-day operations as well as the high-level, focused information executives require for important business decisions. EFI Print MIS Solutions offer estimating and quoting, order entry, job tracking and control, dynamic scheduling with “what-if” capabilities, real-time shop floor data collection, physical and finished goods inventory management, invoicing and receivables, payables, GL and financials, sales, employee and process analysis and “Web-to-Print” Internet tools. Availability Shown at Ipex (EFI Stand D20 in Hall 9), Fiery color servers are available through EFI's OEM partners; EFI Print MIS solutions are sold direct from EFI; the EFI JDF Connector is available via free download at www.efi.com, providing JDF connectivity between Fiery digital servers, its powerful print MIS solutions and Adobe Creative Suite 2, Premium Edition. Agfa’s latest :ApogeeX 3.0 is available now and is demonstrated at Ipex (Agfa Stand C10 in Hall 6 ), as well as in the EFI Stand.