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Software 2000 Launches 'Tsunami' - Innovative Stochastic Screening

New Halftoning Technology Meets the Increasing Demand for Both Quality and Print Speed

OXFORD — November 12, 2003 — Software 2000 is pleased to announce the addition of 'Tsunami' (patent applied for) stochastic screening to ColorCore™, their market leading suite of rendering technologies. Tsunami meets the ever-increasing demand for both quality and print speed among today's printing device users.

Stochastic screening and ED (error diffusion) are members of the FM (frequency modulated) screening class of halftoning, which uses randomly distributed spots on the page to create tonal values. Historically, low resolutions, limited color depth and large dot sizes have led OEMs to favor error diffusion over stochastic screening, due to its clear superiority in producing higher quality halftoning. Today however, error diffusion continues to provide the highest print quality but as printer resolutions and color depths grow almost exponentially, error diffusion exacts an ever increasing computational cost. As a result, error diffusion becomes a significant bottleneck where high page throughput is the key requirement and the key market differentiator.

"With print quality comparable to error diffusion, 'Tsunami' stochastic screening delivers the speed that allows OEMs to concentrate on developing products that deliver tremendously fast throughput," says Tony Harris, Chief Technology Officer of Software 2000.

'Tsunami's' groundbreaking technology sets a new standard in stochastic screening. With the launch of Tsunami, stochastic screening technology is able to offer comparable quality to the traditional ED solutions, but with tremendous throughput improvements. The key features and benefits Tsunami offers to OEMs, ISVs and RIP vendors include:

Unsurpassed halftoning speeds on laser and inkjet printers
Excellent quality comparable to existing ED technology
Consistent output across hardware and operating system platforms
Support of up to eight arbitrary color channels
Support of multiple levels of image intensity
Support for color systems such as CYMK, photo-inks, CMYKOG, and Hexachrome™

'Tsumani' also achieves consistency of output regardless of the target hardware and OS platform. This is achievable because 'Tsunami' is part of the ColorCore suite, a technology that has been developed to be easily deployable across a range of hardware and OS platforms such as Linux, Macintosh and Windows, through to embedded system applications. Embedded implementations of 'Tsunami' and ColorCore are already underway for the ARM family of embedded processors.

About Software 2000

Founded in 1989, Software 2000 is the world's largest independent developer of printer driver and imaging technologies. The company licenses these technologies to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) of printer and digital copiers, through Driver Development Kits (DDKs) and custom driver developments. These customizable technologies support Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and Linux environments. Software 2000 technologies reduce cost and time to market whilst increasing driver performance.

Since the company began, Software 2000 has been at the forefront of innovation in print imaging and has worked with all of the major OEM suppliers of printers and digital copiers. These OEMs include Canon, Epson, HP, Konica, Lexmark, Océ, Olivetti, Ricoh, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, Xerox and many others. There are now over 80 million drivers containing Software 2000 technology in use around the world. Tsunami software.

Software 2000 is headquartered in Oxford, England, with offices in Japan, the United States and Canada. In addition, Software 2000 has recently acquired the Justway group in Japan.

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