Avid Technology, Inc., announced its plans to expand the wide range of video and
audio content creation solutions that will be available for
Intel-based Mac systems, including the new Mac Pro workstation
introduced last week at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference
(WDCC). The Avid Video division expects to deliver new versions of
its industry-standard Avid Xpress Pro and Media Composer systems
for all Intel-based Macs by December. Following the arrival of the new
Mac Pro workstation, Avid's Audio Division, Digidesign, expects to
release a compatible update to its acclaimed Pro Tools?HD(R) 7.2
software in September. Full qualification for the existing Intel-based
Mac versions of Pro Tools LE(TM) and Pro Tools M-Powered(TM) on the
new Mac Pro workstation is also expected in December, although
preliminary testing indicates that both applications will run without
problems. In addition, Digidesign's business unit, M-Audio, expects to
qualify various hardware interfaces for the Mac Pro workstation by
December. A wide range of Digidesign(R) and M-Audio(R) systems are
already compatible with the Intel-based computers that Apple released
earlier this year.
"As the only nonlinear editing manufacturer to offer video
applications on both the Mac and PC, we'll be able to leverage our
cross-platform development expertise to fully harness the power and
performance of Apple's new Intel-based Mac workstations. This is great
news for our audio and video customers who prefer to run our
industry-standard video and audio systems on the Mac," said Mike
Rockwell, vice president and CTO of Avid Technology. "Throughout the
Mac's history, we've supported every version of its OS, and since
1998, we have optimized our products, codecs and software processing
routines for Intel chipsets. Avid, Digidesign, and M-Audio customers
will experience tremendous performance enhancements compared to
previous Macs, and we're looking forward to innovating even greater
video and audio solutions on this platform in the months and years
ahead."
In addition to continuing development on Intel-based Mac systems,
Avid's video and audio businesses plan to maintain backward
compatibility with PowerPC-based Mac systems. Avid and its businesses
also expect to support future versions of the Mac OS, including the
forthcoming Leopard OS announced this week at the Apple WWDC. Specific
timing for Leopard OS support will be announced after Apple begins
shipping the new OS some time in 2007.
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