Still trying to make its mainframes look a little more like modern servers, IBM Corp is trying again to emancipate users of its Advanced Function Printing on the mainframe – except that AFP has now mysteriously come to stand for Advanced Function Presentation – and has done a deal with Adobe Systems Inc on its PostScript page description language and Acrobat graphical document interchange system. Under the agreement, Adobe will put Acrobat up under OS/2 Warp for iAPX-86 and PowerPC and IBM will pre-load the Adobe Acrobat Reader, which enables users to view, navigate and print documents created with Acrobat, onto all its commercial desktop personal computers from the autumn. Under the agreement, Advanced Function Printing is relegated to the role of print management, providing error recovery and resource management: the company claims that printers – the people, not the machines – and IBM claims that publishers using PostScript software with Advanced Function software and printer products will benefit from improved electronic job submission, automated print shop management, and the easy distribution of documents across networks and operating environments.
