Momentum Builds for Macintosh with PowerPC

Cupertino, Calif. -- October 19, 1993 -- In a series of announcements at major industry events this week, Apple Computer Inc. is demonstrating growing momentum behind and support for the next generation PC platform: Macintosh with PowerPC. The PowerPC is a new RISC-based microprocessor family under development by Apple, IBM and Motorola. Macintosh with PowerPC will bring a new level of performance and functionality to personal computing at low prices.

In summary, Apple announced the following:

-- Seven additional software developers have announced plans to develop new versions of applications that tap the power of Macintosh with PowerPC.

-- Plans to deliver higher clock speeds for RISC-based Macintosh systems.

-- Additional details on its PowerPC upgrade program for current customers.

-- Delivery of first silicon of the PowerPC 603, the second member of the PowerPC family of chips designed jointly with IBM and Motorola.

This week's progress update coincides with three major conferences where PowerPC will be discussed: the Microprocessor Forum in Burlingame, CA, the Seybold Publishing Conference in San Francisco, and the EDUCOM education conference in Cincinnati. Re-affirming that Apple is on schedule for its planned introduction of systems based on new RISC technology during the first six months of 1994, Apple plans to exhibit Macintosh with PowerPC prototype systems and demonstrate a selection of applications that are under development at both Seybold and EDUCOM.

"Just as the current Macintosh platform continues to gain marketshare, our next generation Macintosh with PowerPC technology continues to gain momentum," commented Ian Diery, executive vice president and general manager of the Personal Computer Division. "PowerPC represents a major milestone for Apple, our customers and the industry. Not only is Apple readying new mainstream systems with radical improvements in price/performance, but we are providing our customers with an on-ramp to the future of personal computing. Because of the imminent arrival of Macintosh with PowerPC, we want to keep our customers well informed of our progress."

Major Developers Committed to PowerPC

Notably, Apple announced seven new developers worldwide have unveiled plans to deliver "native" applications for Macintosh with PowerPC. (A native application is an application that has been recompiled for the PowerPC chip. Native applications take full advantage of the superior speed of PowerPC technology.) Together with 11 leading developers who previously announced their support, this brings the total number of developers who have announced applications support on Apple's platform to 18. The seven new developers include the following: Artwork Systems, N.V., Canto Software, Inc., Fractal Design Corporation, Graphisoft, Great Plains Software, ITEDO Software GmbH., and Wolfram Research, Inc.

Developers previously committed to developing native applications include: Adobe Systems Inc., ACIUS Inc., Aldus Corporation, Claris Corporation, Deneba Software, Frame Technology, Insignia Solutions, Microsoft Corporation, Quark, Inc., Specular International, and WordPerfect Corporation.

At both the Seybold and the EDUCOM conferences, Apple plans to publicly demonstrate for the first time a selection of native applications that are currently under development by some of the industry's leading software publishers. These demonstrations underscore the significant performance gains users should be able to achieve with native applications in the future. Planned demonstrations include the following:

-- Aldus FreeHand, one of the world's most popular professional drawing programs.

-- Insignia SoftPC, a program which will allow Macintosh users to run DOS and Windows applications with good performance on the PowerPC processor. This creates a migration path to Macintosh with PowerPC for DOS/Windows users.

-- Adobe Photoshop, the leading image processing program for publishing and multimedia users worldwide.

-- Fractal Design Painter, the premier publishing and multimedia tool for image enhancement.

-- Specular Infini-D, a major 3-D modeling and rendering package for the Macintosh environment.

-- Wofram Mathematica, the world's leading mathematical modeling package for education and business.

Apple continues to work with these and hundreds of other developers worldwide to ensure the availability of a wide range of leading applications and to help create entirely new categories of products, enabled by the powerful new PowerPC architecture. (For a complete listing of developers supporting Macintosh with PowerPC, see the third-party summary sheet below.)

"Apple developers worldwide are quickly and enthusiastically adopting Macintosh with PowerPC and are very excited about the powerful, next-generation applications they'll be able to deliver," said David Nagel, senior vice president and general manager of the AppleSoft Division. "We are extremely pleased with developers' progress to date. Working closely together, we are setting new standards in personal computing."

In addition to native applications, Macintosh with PowerPC will run thousands of existing Macintosh applications based on Apple's current System 7 operating system. Apple's chief goal in introducing PowerPC is to retain a high degree of compatibility with existing Macintosh applications. Addressing compatibility, Nagel said: "Because Apple controls both the hardware and software, our compatibility is rock solid."

Affordable Upgrade Paths

Today, Apple also announced plans to ship upgrade products simultaneous with the initial introduction of Macintosh with PowerPC systems, and added an upgrade path for Apple Workgroup Servers (See related release today).

Earlier this year, Apple announced an aggressive upgrade program for PowerPC technology in order to ensure the highest degree of customer satisfaction for customers as they transition to Macintosh with PowerPC. At that time, the company announced that it would offer upgrades for six Macintosh desktop computer models. Models included: the Macintosh Centris 610 and 650 computers, Macintosh IIvx and IIvi, Performa 600 and Quadra 800. Since that time, Apple has added two new desktop models to the list with the introduction of the Centris 660AV and the Quadra 840AV.

Upgrade prices will vary by model, with upgrades expected to start at below $1,000. Specifics on various upgrade options are expected to be announced in conjunction with the introduction of PowerPC technology-based systems. Apple and third parties continue to work on upgrade paths for other Macintosh models.

"We intend to be extremely aggressive with our upgrade offerings to ensure a smooth transition for current Macintosh customers to move to PowerPC," said Diery.

Increased Microprocessor Performance

In co-operation with IBM and Motorola, Apple announced that the performance of the PowerPC 601 chip has exceeded original goals and plans to ship at higher frequencies (speeds) than earlier announced. The minimum speed of RISC-based Macintosh systems has been increased from 50MHz to 60MHz. Additionally, Apple announced that it also plans to ship 80MHz systems during 1994. Last May, Apple exhibited an 80MHz prototype system as part of a technology demonstration at its Worldwide Developer's Conference.

Also this week, Apple with IBM and Motorola announced that the second PowerPC chip, the 603, has reached first silicon. Motorola and IBM unveiled the new chip at the Microprocessor Forum in San Francisco. The first silicon for the PowerPC 601 processor, which is at the heart of the first generation of Macintosh systems based on PowerPC, was announced last fall at the Slater Microprocessor Forum.

"By delivering the 603 just one year after the first generation PowerPC chip, the Apple-IBM-Motorola technology alliance has demonstrated the ability of the three companies to stay on schedule for these major joint developments," said Diery.

"With the introduction of the 603 chip we achieve yet another milestone in our drive to make the PowerPC architecture the next industry standard," said Phil Pompa, director of marketing for Motorola's RISC Microprocessor Division. "Together Apple, IBM and Motorola are delivering a full spectrum of PowerPC microprocessors that will power the next generation of personal computing products."

Headquartered in Cupertino, Apple Computer Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) develops, manufactures and markets personal computer, server, and personal interactive electronic systems for use in business, education, the home, science, engineering and government. A recognized pioneer and innovator in the information industry, Apple does business in more than 120 countries.

NOTE: Apple, the Apple logo, and Macintosh are registered trademarks and Centris, Quadra, Performa and System 7 are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc. PowerPC, PowerPC 601 and PowerPC 603 are trademarks of IBM.

Macintosh with PowerPC Third-Party Developer Listing

October 1993

    The following third-party Macintosh applications developers have
publicly announced their support for Macintosh with PowerPC and their
plans to deliver native PowerPC applications that tap the power and
performance of the PowerPC architecture. Apple is on schedule to meet
its planned shipment of Apple Macintosh systems based on the new RISC
technology during the first six months of 1994.

    ACI
    Developers of 4th Dimension, a leading relational database that is
fast, powerful, easy to learn and easy to use. It enables users to
quickly create personalized systems and keeps pace with a user's
needs as they grow in complexity and size. 4D features an extensive
programming language, automatic button scripting, multipage layout
and easy-to-use procedures. Acius also offers a wide range of
integrated application modules for 4th Dimension.
    Press Contact: Suzanne Whitney-Smedt of ACI US, 408-252-4444.

    Adobe Systems Inc.
    Developers of software products and technologies that enable users
to create, display and communicate electronic documents. Products
include Adobe Illustrator, a powerful design tool that includes text
handling capabilities, automatic graphing and ease-of-use features;
Adobe Photoshop, a photo design and production tool; and Adobe
Premiere, digital video software. Adobe has announced its plans to
support PowerPC in future products, but no specific product.
    Press Contact: LaVon Peck of Adobe Systems Inc. 415-962-2730.

    Aldus Corporation
    Aldus creates computer software solutions that help people
throughout the world effectively communicate information and ideas. The
company focuses on three lines of business: applications for the
professional publishing and prepress markets; applications for the
general consumer market; and service and support programs for
professional end-users. Products include PageMaker, Persuasion,
Freehand, Digital Darkroom, Fetch, and others. Aldus has announced its
plans to support Macintosh with PowerPC in future versions of its
applications software products, including Aldus PageMaker.
    Press Contact: Brad Stevens of Aldus, 206-628-2361.

    Artwork Systems N.V.
    Developers of ArtPro, a high-end application for the prepress of
labels and packaging, providing advanced features like vectorization
and manipulation of complex scanned lineart, editing of imported
PostScript files, trapping and optimized PostScript output.
    Press Contact: Peter Denoo of Artwork Systems N.V., Belgium,
+32-9-225-79-46.

    Canto Software Inc.
    Developers of Cumulus, an extremely fast, professional client/server
network and single user image database for indexing and archiving any
number of images on the Macintosh. Using Cirrus, Canto's state-of-
the-art scan and image manipulation program that also includes
AppleScript and ColorSync calibration, it's even possible to
automatically catalog images directly into any Cumulus database.
    Press Contact: Jan Lindner of Canto Software Inc., 415-431-6871.

    Claris Corporation
    A leading worldwide vendor of Macintosh and Windows software for
business, education and home, and a subsidiary of Apple Computer,
Inc., Claris will be among the first vendors to offer native PowerPC
Macintosh applications. The company has stated that ClarisWorks, the
award winning no. 1 integrated application on Macintosh, will be the
first native PowerPC Macintosh application from Claris.
    Press Contact: Ines Anderson of Claris, 408-987-7154.

    Deneba Software
    Developers of Canvas, a precision drawing program for illustrators,
designers, artists, architects and engineers. Deneba has announced
its plans to release a native-mode version of Canvas for Macintosh
with PowerPC; the new version will be based on a new, platform-
independent graphics kernel currently under development at Deneba.
Deneba is also the developer of Deneba artWORKS, UltraPaint, Spelling
Coach Professional, and The Big Thesaurus.
    Press Contact: Doug Levy of Deneba Software, 305-596-5644.

    Fractal Design Corporation
    Developers of award-winning natural-media graphics software which
captures the expressive human gesture, including Fractal Design
Painter, Fractal Design PainterX2, and Fractal Design Sketcher.
   Press Contacts: Kim Haas of McLean Public Relations, 415-513-8800; or
Daryl Wise of Fractal Design, 408-688-5300.

    Frame Technology
    A worldwide provider of document information management solutions
for the creation, management, distribution, and retrieval of critical
business and technical documents, Frame has announced its plans to
take full advantage of the increased power and performance of
Macintosh with PowerPC with all of its products including the award-
winning FrameMaker for Macintosh document publishing software.
    Press Contact: Kristin Vais of Frame Technology, 408-954-3964.

    Graphisoft Software Development Ltd.
    Developers of ArchiCAD, a high-end architectural building modeler
that optimizes the design process by integrating any plan with a
three-dimensional database that provides automatic elevations,
sections and rendered perspectives and animations.
    Press Contact: David Marlatt of Graphisoft U.S., 415-737-8665.

    Great Plains Software
    A leading developer of modular accounting and business management
software providing solutions ranging from entry-level integrated
accounting software to client/server and SQL systems. Great Plains
has announced its plans to support Macintosh with PowerPC in its
Dynamics Release Two and Dynamics C/S+ product lines by September
1994. Dynamics Release Two is a major upgrade to the company's
existing Dynamics product line of 14 accounting software modules and
tools and Dynamics C/S+ is a client/server solution with scalable
server hardware.
    Press Contact: Terry Kalil of Great Plains Software, 701-281-3130.

    Insignia Solutions Inc.
    The industry's leading provider of high-quality PC compatibility
solutions for Macintosh computers and UNIX-based workstations.
Insignia, working in strategic alliance with Microsoft, has announced
its plans to ship SoftWindows for the Macintosh with PowerPC.
SoftWindows, based on Microsoft's Windows source code, runs Windows
and MS-DOS applications at 486 PC speeds and fully supports PC
networks, including Novell NetWare and Microsoft LAN Manager.
SoftWindows gives the PowerPC processorPbased Macintosh platform full
PC compatibility.
    Press Contacts: Nancy Tatum of Insignia Solutions, 415-694-3708; or
Katherine Gill of Wilson McHenry, 415-592-7600.

    ITEDO Software GmbH
    Developer of ITEDO IsoDraw, a high-end 2D graphics application for
technical illustration, designed for professional illustrators in the
electronic technical publishing field. IsoDraw, which has captured
significant market attention in Europe, is used by large-scale
enterprises and subcontractors which have already started to produce
technical illustrations and documentation in a completely electronic
way. Key customers include Audi, BMW, Krupp, and Bosch-Siemens. The
product is distributed in Europe and the U.S.
    Press Contact: Rolf Schnakenberg of ITEDO Software GmbH, Germany
+49-2241-6-88-41.

    Microsoft Corporation
    Leading developers worldwide of a wide range of software products
and services for business and personal use, and early adopters of Apple
technology, Microsoft's Macintosh application products include
Microsoft Excel, Word, Works, Mail, Project, Schedule+, and
PowerPoint. Microsoft has announced its plans to provide early
support for Macintosh with PowerPC, and that Excel, Word, and Works
will be among the first Microsoft applications available for the
PowerPC processorPbased Macintosh systems.
    Press Contact: Julie Briselden of Microsoft, 206-936-9307.

    Quark, Inc.
    Developers of publishing software for commercial publishing and
graphic arts professionals around the world, Quark's Macintosh
products include Quark XPress, the industry-standard page layout
program that provides the precision, power and ease of use needed to
produce a broad range of publications. Quark also develops and
distributes the Quark Publishing System, a high-performance editorial
management system.
    Press Contacts: Greg Morton, 303-894-3365, or Peter Warren,
303-894-3452, both of Quark.

    Specular International
    Developers of Infini-D, an integrated three-dimensional modeling,
rendering and animation package. Infini-D, which has garnered all the
industry's major awards including Winner of the 1992 MacUser Editor's
Choice Award for the Best 3D package, combines a friendly interface
with sizzling 3D power. Infini-D's robust feature set includes a
high-quality, super-fast renderer, Type-1 and TrueType font support,
EPS support, unlimited light sources, multiple cameras, hierarchical
modeling, precise PICT and texture mapping, QuickTime support,
Animation Assistant, time-based animation, spline-based motion, and
object and surface "morphing". Specular also produces 10 volumes of
Replicas, which are 3D models and surfaces for use with Infini-D, as
well as BackBurner, a distributed network rendering system which
significantly reduces the amount of time needed to render complex
Infini-D scenes.
    Press Contact: Dave Trescott of Specular International,
413-549-7600.

    Wolfram Research, Inc.
    Developers of Mathematica, a general system for doing mathematics by
computer that can be used both as an interactive calculation tool and
as a programming language, and which does numerical, graphical and
symbolic calculations.
    Press Contact: Jane Rich of Wolfram Research, 217-398-0700.

    WordPerfect Corporation
    Developers of the world's best-selling word processor,WordPerfect,
as well as WordPerfect Works, an integrated program, and WordPerfect
Office, an integrated cross-platform electronic mail, personal
calendaring and group scheduling program. WordPerfect Corporation has
announced its plans to take full advantage of the power and
performance of Macintosh with PowerPC with a future version of
WordPerfect.

Press Contact: Dave Terran of WordPerfect, 801-228-5013.

NOTE: Apple, the Apple logo, and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Computer Inc. PowerPC is a trademark of IBM Corp. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of the individual companies.

This for informational purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation. We strongly encourage you to check with the companies before publishing any information about their products. By providing this list, Apple Computer Inc. assumes no responsibility with regard to the selection, performance, or use of these vendors or products. All understandings, agreements, or warranties, if any, take place directly between the vendors and the prospective users.

CONTACT: Betty Taylor of Apple Computer, 408-974-3983