August 1 is D-day for Adobe

Following the Adobe Forum Meeting on 17 July in the USA, the company said that it would come up with a solution by 1 August.

The meeting attracted more than two-dozen members of the printing industry in an open forum-style fashion. As a result of the concerns expressed in the forum, three key recommendations emerged. These include: re-evaluating the implementation of the FedEx Kinko's service in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader, exploring options of making print service providers more discoverable in Adobe's creative products and investigating the ability for printers to distribute a branded plug-in to their customers.

"The next steps are to review the meeting notes and for Adobe to communicate its response by 1 August," said Johnny Loiacono, senior vice-president. "Today's forum was open and honest, and Adobe looks forward to continuing the dialogue and working toward a solution."

Loiacono also admitted to Printweek.com that: "Getting their [customer's] input should have been baked into the process."

In Australia, Printing Industries national communications and technology services manager, Joe Kowalewski, said that last week's meeting in the USA between Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen and members of his marketing team with industry representatives had allowed everyone to "put their cards on the table". (Printing Industries members' views were represented by its US sister organisation, Printing Industries of America PIA).

"Our feedback makes it clear that Adobe have acknowledged they made an error of judgement and Mr Chizen reiterated this point on several occasions," he said.

"It has also been underscored that Adobe is bound by contractual issues which need to be resolved. However that is not an issue of concern for the many thousands of angry printing companies who are growing impatient waiting for a suitable solution to be forthcoming.

"In reality there is only one reasonable solution, the removal of the 'print to Kinkos' button via a new Acrobat reader release and related upgrades of its other affected products.

"With such a move we believe Adobe could begin to minimise the impact of this controversy and start to rebuild its standing and reinforce the confidence of the industry in Australia and the many other countries affected."

Kowalewski said that Adobe's undertaking to produce a statement on August 1 needed to be supported by both tangible and industry acceptable solutions to the issue.

"Our industry and the industries of our affected colleagues do not want a PR exercise. What they want urgently is a solution to a problem not of their making that is potentially affecting the print procurement procedures of customers each day it is left unresolved," he said.

Printing Industries CEO Philip Andersen will meet Adobe Australia officials in Sydney July 27 to follow-up on the US meeting.

As outrage towards Adobe grows, the floodgates have been opened for Quark to make a comeback. According to a spokesperson from Quark, loyalty is growing.

"Quark has always been committed to helping all output providers grow their businesses," the spokesperson said. "Naturally this remains very high on our list of priorities."

"Our output provider and printer communities are letting us know they're pleased Quark is listening to the printer community and delivering the support they need to remain competitive, and they appreciate the direction we're moving."

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