BOULDER, CO – May 16, 2006 -- IBM announced today that it has proposed opening the development of its Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) architecture, signifying a major standards collaboration initiative for the print industry. With this proposal, the current members of the 28-company AFP Color Consortium (AFPCC) would jointly develop all extensions to the AFP architecture, which is used by clients worldwide for the high speed printing of bills, statements and other customer communications. The AFP Color Consortium was created by IBM in October 2004, to work collaboratively on defining the color management portion of the AFP architecture. In January 2006, the group approved the first release of this architecture and began publishing the new open color standard. Members are designing the architecture to help businesses develop device-independent color applications, resources and workflows that can be printed initially with high-quality grayscales and, eventually, in color. “After seeing how well the consortium collaborated to create color management extensions to AFP, we decided, for the good of clients and the industry, to extend this initiative to the entire architecture,” said Jeff Paterra, vice president of development and professional services for IBM. “By extending the scope for the technical experts who make up the consortium, we see a real opportunity for continued innovation, with the ultimate goal of increasing functionality and flexibility for clients.” The latest member of the AFP Color Consortium is FormsPath, a provider of software and services for document management. The consortium now includes: --Hardware vendors IBM, Kodak, Lexmark, Océ, Xeikon, and Xerox --Software vendors CDP Communications, Cincom, Compart Systemhaus, COPI, Crawford Technologies, DocuCorp International, Document Sciences Corporation, Elixir Technologies, Emtex, Exstream Software, FormsPath, GMC Software Technology, Group 1, Intermate, Inventive Designers, ISIS Papyrus, Metavante, MPI, Printsoft, Solimar Systems, StreamServe and Xenos Group. For more information about the AFP Color Consortium, visit its on-line community: www.afpcolor.org. The web site is designed to provide information and documentation on the open color elements of the AFP architecture. For more information about IBM’s output solutions visit ibm.com/printers