Camps left in 2004 and started a new company, Gradual Software, which focuses on automation of print publishing workflows. Enfocus parent company EskoArtwork announced its acquisition of Gradual along with details that it would merge Gradual and Enfocus products and install Camps as a senior vice president leading the remixed Enfocus business unit.

Gradual's SWITCH software apps provide an automation backbone that hook into third-party PDF and imaging tools to route and process jobs based on job attributes and metadata, Camps writes in an email to PDFzone.

That technology likely will complement Enfocus's existing prepress workflow and server products, which assist printers and their publishing clients to fix technical glitches in PDFs before they hit the press, where they cost a lot more time and money to solve.

"I'm extremely excited to be in charge of my 'two babies' now (i.e. Enfocus and Gradual)," Camps continues. "There is more synergy between these two than meets the eye, once you start thinking about it. We have ambitious plans for taking the combined unit to new heights. The drive and resources of EskoArtwork will help make that possible."

The Steve Jobs-like return to the fold—of course, no pundit flogged Enfocus like they were Apple in the months before Jobs came back—will likely make PitStop's installed base of printers rejoice, as the innovative software first made its mark under Camps' direction in the 1990s by solving prepress issues in PDF files that Acrobat couldn't.

"I can't begin to compare myself to Steve Jobs, but I'm flattered

nonetheless," Camps continues, adding that, coincidentally, his new office is in a meeting room formerly named "Jobs." "Enfocus was doing quite well, but I believe it will benefit substantially from a clear vision, and I've always been able to formulate clear visions—so people say."

The PitStop line of software, it could be argued, is one of the most popular, longest-lived products in the PDF third-party developer ecosystem. It grew from a single plug-in in the 1990s to a line of server apps and client utilities that certify PDFs as error-free in print workflows.

For those attempting to keep score of the several successive mergers leading up to yesterday's annoucement, here goes: Commercial printing software company Artwork Systems purchased Enfocus in 2000. Artwork Systems merged with Esko-Graphics last year, with the new company renaming itself EskoArtwork. Esko-Graphics resulted from the merger of Barco Graphics and Purup Eskofot in 2002.