Cumulus 5.5.2 includes various improvements, enhanced compatibility with Mac OS X in Classic Mode, additional file conversion abilities, improved OPI support and more

Berlin, Germany - February 24, 2003 - Canto, the global leader in Digital Asset Management solutions, today announced the immediate availability of Cumulus 5.5.2, a free upgrade to its award-winning, cross platform line of Digital Asset Management solutions for enterprises, workgroups and single users. Cumulus 5.5.2 is a service update to previous versions. In addition to bug fixes and improved user handling it includes enhancements in compatibility with Mac OS X Classic Mode and enhanced OPI.

Cumulus 5.5.2 will be offered with an Update Installer so that the update process from earlier 5.5.x versions will be easy. For example, all settings for the Information Window will be converted from 5.x to 5.5.2, so updating no longer requires users to reset that information.

Cumulus 5.5.2 also offers an enhanced Pix Asset Converter which enables digital images cataloged in Cumulus to be converted into JPEG, TIFF and BMP formats, as well as conversion into RGB, CMYK and Greyscale color spaces with the simple click of a button. Changes in size per pixel, percentage and resolution are also possible.

In addition to over 130 different filters under Mac OS and Windows Cumulus 5.5.2 also includes numerous filters for the Unix platform. All filters released after the 5.5.1 release are now included in 5.5.2, containing filters for cataloging and reading specific metadata from EPS, PDF, BMP, IPTC, PNG, PBM and generic Unix files.

"As many times before, we received valuable ideas from our users on how to enhance functionality and performance of our software," said Jennifer Neumann, CEO of Canto. "This Upgrade also includes program improvements that will be valuable to most of our customers."

The Cumulus OPI support will now also be available in connection with Server/Client AssetTransfer, a functionality of the Workgroup and Enterprise Edition. Thus, users of Web Publisher Pro receive even more flexibility and security for their assets offered on the web.

Also included in delivery is a Quark XTension update enabling users to Drag & Drop from Cumulus into Quark XPress 5.x. This XTension has been developed by Exkalibur, a Cumulus Development Partner.

Availability and Pricing
Cumulus 5.5.2 is immediately available for Mac OS, Windows, UNIX (Linux, Solaris) in English, German, French and Japanese.

This service update will be available free of charge for owners of a Cumulus 5.5 version. Customers working with an older Cumulus version may purchase an upgrade - price to be determined by specific user configuration.

For more information on all Cumulus products and services and to download demo versions go to: http://www.canto.com

About Canto
Founded in 1990, Canto is the leading supplier of Digital Asset Management products and services with over 1 million Cumulus licenses sold and more than 10,000 client/server systems installed worldwide. Canto is committed to deliver world-class solutions at an inexpensive price to the creative arts, publishing, corporate communications and other industries. The company's product line "Cumulus" is designed to manage and archive all types of digital assets used in production, publishing, communication, and other workflows. The Cumulus product line offers cross-platform and Internet technology that scales completely from Enterprise to Single Users.

About Cumulus
Cumulus 5.5 is the perfect archiving system for multimedia data (aka media assets or digital assets). The Cumulus 5.5 platform also offers a flexible base for any kind of workflow solution for assets in production. Cumulus is a high-end application for managing and publishing all types of media assets such as images, layouts, presentations, video, audio and text. The program offers powerful search capabilities, comprehensive customizing options, e.g. user-definable fields, and Internet access, incl. HTML export, emailing and more. When cataloging your digital assets Cumulus automatically reads the contained metadata, creates a thumbnail and references to the original data - no matter which storage media they are on. The Cumulus product line consists of three Editions: Single User, Workgroup, Enterprise, as well as additional Options offered either by Canto or Partner companies.