ROCHESTER, N.Y., October 10, 2004 – NexPress Solutions, Inc., a Kodak company, today announced that the KODAK NEXPRESS 2100 digital production color press has been licensed by Pantone, Inc., and is now optimized for PANTONE Color reproduction for both the four-color CMYK press and the new NEXPRESS intelligent color solution employed by the 2100 with the fifth imaging unit. The KODAK NEXPRESS intelligent color solution, a feature of the fifth imaging unit for the NEXPRESS 2100 press, lets print businesses achieve an extended color gamut beyond that available in standard four-color process printing, enabling significant improvement in the reproduction of spot colors. The designation of the NEXPRESS 2100 press for CMYK and Intelligent Color comes after an extensive and collaborative testing process between NexPress and Pantone. To become a Pantone-licensed device, the NEXPRESS 2100 press had to produce the best possible four-color (CMYK) combinations in two areas — spot color and repeatability of color outputs — for the 1,114 colors in the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM. The rigorous licensing process involved mapping out the correct values for colors, measuring printed targets and testing to create the best possible representations of PANTONE Colors. “Designers and print buyers demand highly accurate PANTONE Color reproduction. With NEXPRESS intelligent color solutions, users are able to simulate 86% of PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM colors with excellent results,” said Venkat Purushotham, president and CEO, NexPress Solutions. “By investing in such a demanding process and working so diligently with the color scientists at Pantone, the NEXPRESS 2100 press has earned the distinctive Pantone-licensed product designation, assuring press users will achieve PANTONE Color accuracy and reliability on all their printed projects.” NEXPRESS 2100 press operators need only to perform one simple check to achieve more accurate reproduction of PANTONE Colors. By simply checking the “map spot color” box in the NEXSTATION front end, users will achieve an optimized match for PANTONE Colors. Automation of the PANTONE Color matching process is now available to all users of the NEXPRESS 2100 press through a software upgrade. “Pantone’s licensing of the NEXPRESS 2100 press, which represents a new generation of digital color presses, demonstrates how much color accuracy means to the company,” said Andrew Hatkoff, Pantone's vice president of Electronic Color Systems. “It was truly a collaborative process between two companies that share a mutual commitment to color development and accuracy."