Avid Plans Enhanced Support for Intel-based Macs

Avid Technology Inc. is planning to expand the range of video and audio content systems available for Intel-based Mac systems.

Avid introduced the Mac Pro workstation at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference last week and expects to deliver Intel-based Mac versions of its Xpress Pro and Media Composer systems by December.

"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," said Mike Rockwell, vice president and CTO of Avid Technology. "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."

Avid's audio and video units plan to support future versions of the Mac OS, including the forthcoming Leopard OS recently announced by Apple. In addition, the company will continue to maintain backward compatibility with PowerPC-based Mac systems.