New York Ð Canon USA plans to ship in the fourth quarter its long-awaited color publishing solution that includes the NeXT-based Color PowerStation and connectivity to the Canon Laser Copier (CLC) 500.
"Canon is positioning the PowerStation as a high-end print-and-image server dropped into predominantly Macintosh and/or Windows-based professional publishing environments," said Ahmed Zaatari, national sales manager of Canon USA's System Sales group. Using NeXTSTEP 3.0's new connectivity features, customers can bring the advantages of the NeXT to their existing Mac and PC environments.
The basic system is a NeXTstation Turbo Color machine that is networked to a CLC 500, and a Canon Image Processing Unit (IPU) 10 to manage throughput between the two. Bundled software for the NeXT includes applications for intelligent print-queue management, Open Prepress Interface (OPI) image management, and job tracking.
Optional software is available for using the CLC as a color scanner. System configurations start at about $15,000 for existing CLC and IPU owners and will start at $100,000 including the CLC and IPU.
As a print server, the PowerStation can use Ethertalk to connect to many different output devices, including the CLC. Since the NeXT serves as both a print spooler and PostScipt RIP, users can continue working on individual Macs or PCs during printing.
The system traps files with PostScript errors to prevent the print queue from crashing. Further, each client requires far less memory and hard-disk space than in a traditional publishing environment. Job-tracking software will help take the current guesswork out of time and materials billing. A service bureau or corporate art department equipped with PowerStation can also handle NeXT output or convert their whole operation to a NeXT-based environment.
A third party is working with Canon on the OPI software. OPI allows users on client machines to work with low-resolution versions of large graphics files and manipulate them for placement purposes. The full-resolution image would remain on the NeXT to cut down on processing time and be recalled for output to a high-resolution device.