The software-maker is facing staunch competition as rivals launch their own e-book programs
David Shapshak
The recent launch of Windows XP has overshadowed the other tussles in the software world. One of these is the fight for “reading” software that will be key to another technology revolution: the e-book. E-books were all the rage last year and numerous manufacturers rushed out their models, many of which were the kind of expensive techie must-haves that personal digital assistants were some years ago.
E-books are large book-sized devices with a clear screen that let you read a book in a familiar, but digital format, allowing for some useful functions like electronic searches and creating bookmarks, and usually run off rechargeable batteries.
With the current economic and technology downturn, such expensive devices will remain on the backburner, but they do hold great promise for traditional printed media as we know it. News delivered via the Internet is always more current, but requires reading on screen or wasting paper by printing out pages of the printer-unfriendly Web formatting. But, if you could download a version of the news every morning on to your e-book it would make the initial outlay for the device justifiable.
American schools have been experimenting with a variety of mobile computing devices and are looking to e-books to handle the voluminous and costly textbooks that academic study requires.
But behind the e-books is a battle for the technology that makes the actual copy readable. And, in the copyright-paranoid publishing industry, secure and, well, unstealable.
One of the main players is Adobe Systems, which likes to call itself “the leader in network publishing”. Although its most famous program is the picture-editing Photoshop, Adobe has also carved a niche in the read-only format, known as portable document format (PDF). This allows you to encode a content-rich document into a read-only file format.
Once encoded as a PDF, a file can be read and printed by anyone, but cannot be altered. It is especially useful for material that an author wants you to be able to read but not copy or replicate.
Adobe’s competition, of course, is Microsoft, which has a history of making offshoots of the traditional desk-top computing environment its own. First the Internet browser, then media-playing software, now instant messaging. By incorporating these extra features into Windows, critics say the software-maker makes it a part of the operating system and not an add-on that needs to be downloaded and installed later.
But even the head start that Adobe has may not be enough. Still, it is a maker of fine software and Acrobat is particularly excellent. What’s more, Adobe is the second-largest PC software company in the United States and has annual revenues exceeding $1,2-billion.
Adobe gives away its document viewer, Acrobat Reader, meaning those who buy it to encode their documents can ensure that their readers can open it. South African computer distributor Mustek, for instance, puts its monthly price list in PDF format for all its suppliers.
What this also demonstrates is how the PDF format reduces a document in size, without reducing any of its flourish (such as logos, diagrams or formatting). It is therefore a common way for research houses to publish their reports. Similarly, many interactive companies present their proposals, quotes and invoices in a PDF. You can read them but you can’t alter them.
The latest version, Acrobat 5, was recently released with significant upgrades. It allows for much greater collaboration in a business where many people have to see or comment on a particular document.
The original author can be assured that the way it was written and presented will not change, says an Adobe South Africa representative.
“Acrobat 5 guarantees that documents will be transmitted and received exactly as signed off,” he says.
“Until now it has been virtually impossible to create a document in one software package and transmit it to other software and hardware without losing the format. Visually rich material has created even further problems, with graphic quality degrading or being lost altogether.
“So documents have had to pass through multiple formatting iterations an inefficient and costly process, fraught with errors.”
The same, arguably, can be done with Microsoft Word. The most popular word-processing package allows you to format text, add pictures, convert it to an HTML page, and so on. But changes can be made at any point by any of the people viewing or editing the document.
“Electronic document distribution has been an e-business backwater. Yet, in a universally connected business environment it is absurd that any company should be hindered by an inability to send and receive documents electronically in their originally created form,” says the representative.
This is key to Adobe’s networking publishing vision, of which Acrobat is the core: “Publish anything, anywhere, on any device.”
Adobe recently announced Acrobat for PocketPC, the Microsoft-powered personal digital assistant that has stormed on to the market owned (some would say made) by Palm.
As the worldwide trend of using non-PC devices to access the Internet grows, being able to deliver content as it was intended to be seen or designed is at the top of many concerns.
This is where Adobe is hoping its lead with Acrobat will give it a foothold in what it is calling “the third wave of publishing”.
“It’s the era of creating visually rich, meaningful content that is managed and delivered reliably wherever the user wants, whether it’s a Web page, printer, cellphone, handheld device, PC or Internet appliance,” says Adobe president Bruce Chizen.
“Network publishing will dramatically change the way content is created, managed and delivered,” he says.
Adobe has long made the standard-use software for graphics designers: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Premiere, as well as the lesser known, but equally respected, Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe After Effects, Adobe LiveMotion and Adobe GoLive.
To those, a slew of new releases was announced at a conference in San Francisco last month.
In addition to the PocketPC version, the company headquartered in San Jose, California, released its Acrobat e-book reader 2.1, Adobe InDesign 2, Adobe Illustrator 10, Adobe AlterCast and XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform).
“Adobe InDesign 2.0 helps to solve customer layout and design problems, delivering the cross-media tools to manage current and future publishing,” Adobe said.
“Adobe Illustrator 10 is the ultimate vector graphics tool for cross-media design professionals, Web designers and Web developers for efficiently publishing artwork. InDesign 2.0 and Illustrator 10 are the first fully [Mac] OSX-compliant products from Adobe.”
Adobe AlterCast is a new imaging server software, while XMP is a technology framework it says will enhance workflows.
“AlterCast represents a new direction for Adobe,” the firm said. “The product is built on award-winning Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator technology, while supporting industry-standard image file formats.
“XMP is the ultimate network publishing platform, providing Adobe applications and partners with a common metadata framework that standardises the creation, processing and interchange of document metadata across publishing workflows.”
Chizen, who is also Adobe’s CEO, said at the conference: “In the past year Adobe and its partners have been fuelling the network publishing evolution by turning a compelling vision into reality.
“We are at the forefront of this category and our newly announced Web, cross-media, collaboration and imaging products, along with new and extended partnerships are shaping the way that customers create, manage and deliver content.”
Time will tell about the face-off with the Microsoft juggernaut, but for now Adobe is at the head of the pack.