September 17, 2003 – Heidelberg today announced its support of initiatives by the International Color Consortium (ICC) and Technical Committee 130 (Graphic Technology) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to promote the free exchange of ICC color profiles. Recently, the ICC and TC130 appealed to manufacturers of ICC-based color management software to lift restrictions in their end user license agreements. These licenses currently prevent users from freely exchanging and passing on profiles, which for example describe the printing standard used in a particular print shop. Heidelberg is notifying customers and industry professionals that the software license agreement for its leading ICC profile creation software, PrintOpen, contains absolutely no restrictions of this sort. End users can decide if they want to pass on their profiles in order to achieve optimal color management results in digital workflows extending beyond their own company's boundaries. "Heidelberg is a member of the ICC and wholeheartedly supports the open exchange of color-matched data. This naturally includes ICC color management, which is in the process of standardization, and the internationally standardized PDF/X formats. The license agreement allows a profile created with PrintOpen to be embedded in the PDF/X exchange format without any restrictions whatsoever," says Dr. Peter Leu, Head of Workflow Management at Heidelberg. However, this statement does not relate to Heidelberg licensees who use Heidelberg's color management technology not for open file exchange but rather to enhance the color quality of their products, e.g. digital color printers.