Sun Microsystems Inc’s SunPics division has announced a joint technology and marketing deal with Adobe Systems Inc, hoping to add value to its NeWSPrint open network printing technology with imaging technologies such as PostScript and Display PostScript. In return, Adobe is promising to increase technology and application development for SunSoft’s Solaris environment, including the implementing of Adobe’s Illustrator and Photoshop applications to Solaris. Sun also promises to help Adobe to make its long-awaited Carousel document interchange format software successful in the Unix marketplace. SunPics spokesman Kevin Olsen said that Adobe technology would be integrated within the four layers of its NeWSPrint system, particularly the imaging and font layer where X11/NeWS and its own well-established F3 scalable font format standard already reside. Adobe (and third party) Type 1 fonts will be added, and Sun’s PostScript Level 2 printing will support both Adobe Type 1 and Sun F3 font formats. Sun won’t let go of the advantages of its own technology, which include font maker technology originally from its 1988 acquisition of Folio Inc, which speeds up font design, especially when ideographic Japanese, Korean, Taiwan and Chinese applications are involved. But it admits that Adobe technology is often the default standard, and wants to make the technology available within NeWSPrint. It will also give Sun users more access to MS-DOS systems using Adobe, and full WYSIWYG correspondence between display and output through Display PostScript. No products were announced.
