Xerox Corp, or the bit that is in El Segundo, California has come out with major software enhancements to its Xerox-integrated document processing systems. The new Xerox ViewPoint Version 2.0 software is designed to enable managers and other office workers to collaborate on documents such as proposals, technical reports, marketing plans and publications. Co-authors, says Xerox, can exchange lengthy documents over local or wide-area networks, and document revisions made by every author can be easily tracked. ViewPoint 2.0 provides five levels of fully featured graphics software from which to choose: Xerox Pro Illustrator, a two dimensional, structured illustration package; Xerox Publishing Illustrator, a raster editing package that accepts images from the Xerox 7650 Pro Imager Scanner, the Kurzweil Discover 7320 Scanner and EPIC files; ViewPoint Data-Driven Graphics; ViewPoint Basic Graphics; and ViewPoint Freehand Draw, a basic bit-map paint software package. Xerox has also expanded ViewPoint’s multilingual capabilities with Vietnamese, Hausa, Azerbaijani (Azerbaijani? – surely there isn’t that much of a market in the Soviet Union’s most unsettled region?) and Hebrew fonts and typing logic. The software already supports more than 40 other strategic languages for international business and government communications, including Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, and the languages of North America – Navajo, Eskimo, Comanche? Europe and the Soviet Union. Xerox Network System enhanced Xerox has also enhanced its networking software for Ethernet XNS: the new Version 11.0 of Xerox Network Systems supports Xerox 6085 workstations running ViewPoint 2.0, personal computers and Xerox 860 word processors in a local or wide area network. A new Librarian Service feature in XNS 11 supports ViewPoint’s group authoring capability by maintaining access data about files shared in a workgroup. It also enables networked laser printers to produce complex, full-page illustrations created using ViewPoint’s graphics capabilities, and personal computers on the Ethernetwork can now exchange files with other personal computers and with Xerox workstations. There are also emulations and gateways to the machines made by numerous vendors, including DEC VAX minicomputers, IBM mainframes and Tektronix engineering workstation systems, as well as conversions from IGES, Wang Laboratories, Document Content Architecture and popular MS-DOS software packages. And accompanying the announcement of ViewPoint 2.0 and XNS 11.0 was a new high-capacity Winchester disk server designed for use in XNS 11.0 networks. The Xerox 8090 NS Series server is designed to provide extensive file storage, fast file retrieval, cartridge tape back-up, as well as printing on networked Xerox laser printers and an expanded data communications capacity. ViewPoint Version 2.0 software for Xerox 6085 workstations, XNS 11.0 networking software and the Xerox 8090 Network Server will be available in the fourth quarter of this year, but the company did not give any prices for any of the new products.
