This is a new press release I receive today and I feel compelled to mull over its ramifications.
I've been watching Woodwing for years as they were one of, if not THE earliest to create a publishing workflow based on using print-industry-standard InDesign to output content directly for digital publications. I'm a big fan of the IDEA here - building and refining of the Adobe Creative Suite towards purely digital publishing or at minimum a cross-platform print and digital solution. Problem was that Woodwing started out very costly and has stayed that way. More power to them. It was/is a premium solution and while I wish it were more accessible, I understand why bother if you don't need to. I have also wondered how long Adobe would allow Woodwing (and others that are out there now) to use their products as the doorstep into digital publishing without a deeper cut of the business model, when I knew (or thought I knew) they could simply do the whole thing themselves if they wanted to.
Then, finally and sure enough, Adobe debuted the Digital Publishing Solution/Suite with a long BETA trial, that was FREE for the trial, however long the fun laster, but came with business models and promises of quite expensive complete-to-tablet publishing compared to the ongoing usage of their PDF and then Flash Page Flip publishing model, long utilized by numerous digital publishing platforms and still readily available. Plus while the iPad was obviously touted as well supported within Adobe's "solution," there was less mention of all the other tablets' platform support.
So my thinking was, aha, Adobe let the first fish slide through their hands in some way and though PDF to Flash publishing took off, they got their hands slapped by Apple's iPad and maybe all these Flash companies didn't really need further specialized support from Adobe anyway (which seems odd, but guess they were ambivalent about it all along?) But NOW with the iPad and App mania, Adobe recently had a chance to get back in the game, as long as they could play well with Steve, (who was certainly NOT making it easy.) So out came the Digital Publishing Solution. Which looked a lot like Woodwing, if you asked me. Meanwhile, Woodwing itself, was cooking right along, outside of the iPad scramble and within it.
So with their new DPS, Adobe began to set themselves up in a similar way to the other digital publishing sellers and resellers - no longer just about the software, but about becoming a gateway to the tablets, an ACCESS point and about getting paid dearly for it. (Unlike the PDF and Flash solution that was well established and had become very reasonable.) That's the part that burns me about the tablet situation. It seems a lot of smoke and mirrors about access to these magic machines, when really the web and web-based solutions were doing just fine and would RUN just fine on tablets if Apple hadn't wanted to pretend otherwise and toss up childish barriers to that happening. (Yes, maybe Adobe DID need to get off their butts and support Flash, but it could be done.) The whole digital publishing craft, as it was unfolding, could have translated easily and smoothly over time into HTML5 with Apple and Adobe's cooperation and help, but instead, everyone had to become greedy with the new toys. After all, what publisher in their right mind WOULDN'T want to pay whatever is necessary to be on the tablet platform that without a doubt is going to be the new way people are going to read their content.
My question with the new Alliance between Woodwing and Adobe is that I wonder who is saving who here and what it means for the software publishers use everyday? It certainly makes sense to bring the whole set of excellent tools together and make a more fluid direct-to-tablet workflow. But I'm surprised Adobe needs it. Maybe it just made it much quicker if they didn't have to create all their own tools? But there's also this: "WoodWing Software today announced an agreement with Adobe Systems Incorporated to integrate Adobe Digital Publishing Suite into the WoodWing Enterprise Publishing System and solely resell the Enterprise and Professional Editions of Adobe Digital Publishing Suite as a Value Added Reseller." Hmmmm - Adobe is now a Value Added Reseller? It looks like Woodwing is subsidizing the Pro version of Adobe software (which is the more expensive version of it.) At least that is what it appears to me. Here again - "This is the right time for WoodWing to fully focus on its core activities, which is to streamline and optimize the editorial workflow. For the publishing, distribution and optimization of tablet content, we are going to rely on Adobe Digital Publishing Suite." It very much looks to me like the tables have turned and now Woodwing is the force behind "optimizing the editorial workflow" instead of Adobe and Adobe is now in the Reseller business of Publishing, Distributing and Optimizing Content. I think this is a pretty huge change for the software I've always relied upon to be a workhorse while I, the publisher, Published, Distributed and Optimized Content.
What a shakedown is occurring out there. Designers and Publishers need to stay well aware of all that's happening I will say, that as long as it all remains so ridiculously overpriced, however eloquent it is, I think a lot of this is all preying on ignorant publishers who believe this is the only way to effectively be presented on a tablet. (It's not - remember the Web? Before Apps?) I think it's too bad that so much of Adobe's base clientele of small creative agencies and small publishers are being left out of the game and really, I think it IS a game. A game of make big bucks while we can, while the industry is scared, transitioning and publishers don't yet know how to use any of this. Hopefully once they've all gotten what they can, sanity will return, tools will become accessible and publishers can go back to focusing on good content and gain access to new readers based on that good content. Right now, it's all about paying for shelf space. Well, I guess that's not too different than it's always been. ACCESS. So much for the new freedom the internet brought us.