Hey Adobe! What About In-plants?

WITH A sigh of relief and a self-congratulatory pat on the back, commercial printers and their representatives, including leadership of PIA/GATF, NAPL and NAQP, welcomed the news that Adobe had agreed to remove the contentious “Print to FedEx Kinko’s” button from the current versions of Adobe Acrobat and Reader. In-plant managers were also appreciative—but do they stand to benefit from Adobe’s action? That remains to be seen.

Adobe leadership, in an August 1 conference call, lived up to the promise made at the company’s July 17 forum with printing industry leadership to “re-evaluate” the button and its contractual agreement with FedEx Kinko’s. Adobe announced that new versions of Acrobat and Reader will not contain the link.

According to Johnny Loiacono, senior vice president of Adobe’s Creative Solutions Business Unit, version 8.1.1, shipping sometime in October, will disable the print-to-FedEx Kinko’s functionality when it is installed. Further, Loiacono claimed that the update would be “automatic,” as Adobe products regularly “ping” the software Goliath’s servers looking for updates and security patches. FedEx Kinko’s will continue to distribute an enabled version of Acrobat and Reader from its Web sites, but distribution will no longer be universal.

But What About In-plants?

Though the print community responded with thanks and praises for Adobe’s responsiveness, does Adobe’s announcement fit the needs and concerns of the in-plant industry? That may be a completely different discussion, and we may not be pleased with the outcome.

The commercial printing industry’s concern was not that Adobe had enabled Acrobat and Reader with Web-to-print functionality. Indeed, most of the commercial printers at the July 17 form hosted by Adobe in San Francisco claimed to offer Web links for printing to their customers. Their real concern was that Adobe had singled out a single firm, FedEx Kinko’s, with which to share the functionality. The rest of the commercial print sector was left out in the cold, and that is why they cried foul. Adobe bowed to their concerns.

However—and this is important to in-plants—they did not agree to abandon Web-to-print functionality in future versions of Adobe products. Rather, they said that future functionality would not be limited to a single vendor. Adobe’s corporate strategy seems to include a goal of enabling Web-to-print in its products, beginning with Acrobat and Reader. It has not ruled out adding Web-to-print to other Adobe products including the Creative Suite.

In its August 1 announcement, Adobe noted: “Moving forward, Adobe has set up a Print Advisory Council and will consult with this group to investigate how best to integrate third-party print services into Adobe products [my emphasis], as more partners invest in online print infrastructures.”

While the makeup of the Advisory Council has not been announced, Adobe has implied on several occasions that the folks that attended the July 17 meeting will be the core. Where does that leave in-plants? In-plants were significantly outnumbered at the July forum that I attended, along with Tom Tozier, director of Printing Services at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Tozier represented the Association of College and University Printers (ACUP), and I represented both college and university interests and the in-plant community. We made some points, to be sure, but I am not sure they were heard.

For example, in response the question about the kinds of features such a product should include, I mentioned two: the ability to turn the feature off on an organization-wide level and the ability to gather multiple quotes for orders before they are submitted to print.

The first is especially important for in-plants that operate within the boundaries of the public sector—federal, state and local government agencies and state-supported colleges and universities, for example. Such organizations often impose purchasing restrictions aimed at policy compliance, security/confidentiality and cost control issues. The ability to disable the Web-to-print feature globally would be important to ensure that public entities continue to meet their responsibilities.

Even if the link remains and policy issues are accommodated, many organizations require multiple quotes for expenditures, so the Web link would need the ability to interact with multiple vendors. There are, of course, many more concerns, but these two were presented as examples of concerns that are unique to in-plants.

A Competitive Disadvantage

Just as the FedEx Kinko’s link gave Kinko’s a competitive advantage over other printers, any Web-enabled print functionality at the toolbar level of any software that does not include the in-plant as a vendor gives the commercial print sector a competitive advantage.

Our economy is built on competition, and we all face it every day. Our success as in-plant managers is based, in part, on our ability to develop and provide value to our customers. Our competitive advantage is based on convenience, value, low cost, quality and knowledge of organizational culture and values.

How many times have you, as a manager, stopped a job because you recognized a variance from previous orders of the same document? How many times have you questioned a customer because a date on a document was incorrect, or a photo caption identified something erroneously, or the organizational logo was used improperly, or an outdated version of a form was ordered?

As in-plant managers, we have assumed the role of corporate/organizational keeper of the keys, if you will, in areas like security, confidentiality, legal compliance, corporate/institutional branding, etc. That is where we should be concerned. Will the commercial printer provide these kinds of value-added services?

I think it is safe to assume that Adobe plans to move forward and begin development of products with Web-to-print in the near future. Our responsibility as in-plant managers is to analyze and report to upper management in our organizations the impact of expanded Web-to-print functionality in Adobe products on our business processes and policies. These might include security, confidentiality, cost, brand/image and policy/legal concerns. It is important that we start now to educate our colleagues, especially in the Information Technology and Marketing areas, so that as they hear about the issue from other forums, they can frame it within the context of the impact on their organizations.

I do not believe Adobe has set out to purposely harm in-plants; its response to the printing industry clearly demonstrates that it can be responsive to customer concerns. In-plants are large users of Adobe products, and some segments—higher education, for example—may own more licenses for Adobe products than the entire commercial print community. That being said, I also do not believe that we, the in-plant community, have a loud enough voice in features of future Adobe products.

The commercial printers and their associations are happy now that the Kinko’s monopoly is broken, and they have little or no reason to be concerned about our issues. In fact, the opposite may be true, since in-plants are often viewed as competitors by local commercial shops.

According to InfoTrends (2004), there are approximately 50,000 in-plant printing and/or copying facilities in the U.S. with revenues in excess of $15 billion. Still, we lack a common voice. Every in-plant manager in the country should be thinking of ways to let our voices be heard. It is imperative that we let Adobe know that we have concerns that differ from those of our private sector colleagues, and those concerns need to be heard.

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Ray Chambers, CGCM, MBA, is CEO of Chambers M­anagement Group, an international consulting practice delivering document management and organizational development solutions to decision makers in higher education and government. He has invested over 30 years managing and directing printing plants, copy centers and document management facilities. He is a frequent speaker at events sponsored by IPMA, Xplor, ACUP and others. Most recently, he served as vice president and chief information officer at Juniata College. Chambers is currently a doctoral candidate studying higher education administration. Contact him at raychambers@earthlink.net