Letters, feedback, get it off your chest
Dear Editor,
Re: Websend lends a helping hand to Adobe
As a representative of Adstream, the competitor in this market referred to in this story, I disagree quite strongly with what it posits. Our software, QuickPrint, integrates very closely with InDesign CS3, much more closely indeed than Websend can.
Not only that but QuickPrint, PageStore and PageStore Online will certainly work smoothly with any PDF created with InDesign CS3 even if we didn't provide the level of integration we do. Please feel free to contact me directly to clarify this.
Note, QuickPrint 5.1, our world leading and Standards compliant, Flagship PDF Creation, Validation and Delivery tool is released this Friday, 8th of June including an updated version of our tightly integrated InDesign CS3 Plug-in.
Many Regards
Gavin Costello
Head of Software Development
Adstream
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Dear Editor,
Re:
Websend lends a helping hand to Adobe
The line stating that 'Websend is currently the only ad validating system to
support CS3 files' is misleading and untrue.
All Quickcut clients can use their current Quickprint 5 software to perform
over 280 checks on their PDF's exported out of CS3 - therefore we support
CS3 files. This has been the case the day CS3 was released.
Also supporting CS3 PDF's is the quicksend ad validation and delivery
service (www.quicksend.net.au) and the www.digitalads.com.au ad validation
and delivery service.
Quickcut will be releasing Quickprint 5.1 this month that will also include
a CS3 plugin that will not only custom build the PDF to the publishers
requirements but will also colour manage and fix the PDF.
We would appreciate a clarification to your subscribers regarding the above
story.
Regards
Jamie Davidson
State Sales Manager
Adstream Pty Ltd
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Dear Editor,
RE: Battle of the brands is back: Cadbury and Darrell at loggerheads again
I just want to make the point that I do not know of one person who ever bought Darrell Lea chocolate instead of Cadbury by mistake. Darrell Lea chocolate is almost exclusively sold in its own stores, while Cadbury is sold in almost every shop you see. The main exception is seasonal items, eg Easter eggs, and these are usually branded in black ink from what I have seen.
Do Cadbury think its customers are so stupid that they cannot discern the difference? I think an illiterate dyslexic could tell the difference between the two brands. Coke and Pepsi both have red in their logo, but no-one confuses them. Pepsi red and blue, Telstra yellow, McDonalds yellow etc are all "special" mixes that are not found in the standard pantone book and are exclusive to that company.
If Cadbury wants to own its particular shade of purple as a brand then sure, they can. But, if someone uses a shade of purple that is visually discernable to be different, then they have no rights to that colour as well. They cannot own every shade of purple. If everyone tried to expand the number of similar shades they can own, how long will it take before no-one is allowed to print anything, because every colour will be owned as a brand by someone else due to similar shading?
If Cadbury genuinely considered the colour a problem then they would have done something about it over 30 years ago. Corporate lawyers obviously have nothing better to do these days than try and make money from obscure and trivial nonsense using legal loopholes. Such tactics will ultimately lead to alienating their employer's customers as they see the stupidity of the action and side with the underdog.
That's my opinion.
(Name not supplied)
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Dear Editor,
Re: Significant new industry website takes users on a trip through time
The article on JDA Print Recruitments new website in the latest weekly bulletin incorrectly states: “JDA is Australia's only recruitment agency that focuses exclusively on the printing industry.”
As a committed supplier operating exclusively to the printing industry I have some issues with that and wanted to let you know.
Hope all is well with you.
Kind regards,
Tom Stockdale
Director
Stockdale Printstaff
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Dear Editor,
Re: When to call it a day - Print 21 magazine article
Andy, you have absolutely hit the nail on the head!
Wade Oldham
Wade Oldham Finance Pty Ltd
____________________________
Dear Editor,
Re: When to call it a day - Print 21 magazine article
I felt that I should reply to this article because I personally feel there is a great need for action to help combat the tremendous problems involved with what can only be described as a very stressful situation particularly for those people experiencing the very same scenarios you are referring to.
I quote your fourth paragraph: "But how does the industry arrive at ' fewer printing companies ?'. Are we expected to see firms voluntarily closing their doors for the 'greater good' of what we know as the industry."
My answer to that is a very emphatic NO and I would like to put forward some suggestions as to how the problem could be managed with the assistance of our own Printing Industries Association.
I am sure that most small business owners can relate to the "danger zones" you refer to and if any one of those owners has been lucky enough to survive those various situations they, like myself, can understand exactly what you mean. It can be a time that you often wonder where to turn next but you must "bite the bullet" and just get on with it.
I think that the biggest hurdle facing small companies is that how do they go about becoming the "takeover target" for the "private equity companies" that you refer to without baring their business soul for all to see by advertising their business for sale only to driven mad by every Tom, Dick and Harry wanting to know what their business is all about including their list of clients etc. and then being subjected to some of those very people trying to capitalise on the information they have gleaned from their supposedly "genuine enquiry".
I speak from personal experience having advertised my own small printing business for sale some years ago and I had those very things happen to me at the time, as well as being hounded by business brokers who wanted to charge the earth for what I considered to be very little effort and I wasn't very impressed at all by what I saw and was subjected to at that time. It was after having been through this that I thought there had to be a better way to sell a business so I approached Printing Industries and asked for their advice and help if they knew of any companies who may be interested in my company and in less than 1 week I was contacted by a prospective buyer and within a further week we had agreed on a sale which went ahead with no problems whatsoever. At some stage in more recent times I approached Printing Industries with a view to exploring the very same possibility if I was to make a decision to sell my current business at some stage and I was told that this service was no longer an option and would not be available to me. Whatever happened to that service and why doesn't it still continue today?
At this point I would like to ask the question on behalf of all those businesses that the industry is expecting to "voluntarily close their doors." Why can't Printing Industries offer a service to the industry that would enable a prospective seller to pay a non refundable fee of say $1000 to list their business for sale and at the same time have a service available to prospective buyers to list themselves again with a non refundable fee of say $1000 as well and the companies could then be put in touch with each other if their specific needs matched? This service would need to be reasonably confidential to maintain a certain amount of anonymity for all concerned.
This could achieve many objectives and the one which I feel is most important of all is that a business owner could sell his or her business very discreetly which should also help to minimise the problems associated with any merger and also they will not have to go through the false hopes that every non-genuine enquiry brings and hopefully it could bring together people who have similar ideas on what their expectations are for their own business regardless of whether they are buying or selling especially if the organisers of the scheme,Printing Industries, were able to match up businesses with similar expectations with regard to price and compatibility etc.
Realistically many of the people employed in these companies, the "Good Ole' Joe" and his mates that you referred to, may well be able to find good, long term employment in surroundings and with the people who they have been happy to work with because they still have such a lot to offer the industry and indeed their skills should not be lost simply because an employer has been forced to "voluntarily close their doors."
Also at this point I must stress that a whole lot of angst can be saved, not only to the person selling a business but there will be a lot of problems avoided for the staff of that business because they won't have been subjected to the innuendo that goes hand in hand with the advertised sale of any business by those people who are generally not in any position to make such assumptions.
I have suggested a nominal fee of $1000 to each party because this should help to eliminate any bogus or non genuine enquiries and the funds generated by the fees could be used by Printing Industries to employ or utilise their existing staff to manage the system and it should also enable Printing Industries to generate and maintain contact with current membership, something which to the best of my knowledge is very minimal at the moment. Also as a result of some of these businesses being sold perhaps there will be a good supply of the " Good Ole' Joes and their mates" who like myself have over 50 years of accumulated printing industry knowledge who may well be interested in being involved in a "hands-on" role to help with the implementation and general administration of such a scheme and surely this would in itself be a great thing to be able to utilise such a wealth of skill and talent that could be available to pass on some of this great amount of knowledge.
There would obviously be a fair amount of work initially to get such a scheme up and running but once the whole thing was in place it would become, in my opinion, a relatively simple process to keep going.
I am sure that each and every one of us at some stage in our own situation has been blown away by some of the legal costs we have incurred so at the same time I am sure that there could be a simplified system put into place to organise some of the legal aspects which basically should be very similar in each situation so instead of each and every sale requiring a very expensive legal scenario a basic contract of sale could be drawn up and would only need to be modified to achieve what is required by the individual companies as needed which could again take a lot of mystique out of the whole equation.
" The whole process is not scary--- just different."
You tell us not to be frightened by the current corporatisation trends, it had to happen so we should be a part of it, so why not help those concerned by trying to eliminate some or most of those concerns for the people involved because I believe, contrary to what you say, that the whole thing can be very scary if you are the person making those decisions and I am speaking from my own personal experience, both past and present!
Finally I would like to say that if we, the business owners, are being called on to review and revise our attitudes, perhaps it may well be time for our industry leader Printing Industriesto do likewise and listen to the cries for help from the people in the industry who are looking for assistance in what is obviously the most difficult time in their entire career.
I apologise for the length of this reply but I do hope that you will see fit to publish this entire reply not just edited sections,
Yours truly,
Peter O'Keeffe
Managing Director
Perfectly Bound Pty Ltd
This letter was published in full - Ed.
