PR Ink Bomb at Adobe

Adobe's PDF has become the "xerox" of today's document exchange, but some printing companies are complaining they have been cut out of the loop.  In the latest version of their software, the option of sending your document to be professionally printed at a FedEx Kinko's is available on a dropdown menu. From the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

"Through a partnership FedEx Kinko's and Adobe announced in early June, people using the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat and Reader 8.1 can electronically transfer documents for printing to FedEx Kinko's by clicking on a "Send to FedEx Kinko's" button that shows up as an option under file choices."

Although this functionality has been available in Adobe for years, small printers are now starting to push back, perhaps due to the increased visibility of the option. Underlying the obvious competitive concern of the small printers is the industry trend towards on-demand printing. Instead of printing large volumes of material that could soon be outdated, the FedEx Kinko's model leverages their retail network to send small quantities of collateral to the city where it is needed. This variable cost model avoids obsolete inventory, shipping, and the warehouse storage costs. This approach seems to make more sense in our digital world.

The printing groups took their concern's to Adobe's CEO Bruce Chizen in June, but that did not seem work. Now they are waging the battle in the press.  Some printers are shouting for a FedEx boycott. I predict that this call will likely go unheeded as FedEx is so embedded in the high priority shipping needs of the printing industry. With the recent acquisition of Macromedia's Flash video suite, the Adobe authoring software has become even more ubiquitous in the desktop publishing world. It is hard to imagine a world without PDF. It will be interesting to see how Adobe responds to the offended printing associations who are part of their core customer base. This may be just minor PR gaffe or it could snowball into a major strategic blunder. Is an alliance with one large company is worth alienating a large number of small users? Or are the small printers a dying breed?

Comments

[Adam Slutsky, CEO, Mimeo.com]

I applaud Adobe’s effort to support simple, seamless access to online printing services, but they should embrace a model where many providers can operate on an even playing field. In the end, such a model will bring increased awareness to the value of online on-demand printing, create a new revenue stream for Adobe, bring incremental revenue to the best players in this unique space, and most importantly, best serve the needs of everyone’s customers.

It is important for people to know that there are real options available to them. Mimeo.com competes successfully against FedEx Kinko’s for business in the printing of documents using Adobe products. Print buyers want choices and will always demand superior high quality products and services.

[Kurt Foss]

You don't have all of your facts right. See -->

http://blogs.adobe.com/johnnyl/2007/07/lessons_learned.html