The banker bank

On: 9:21 PM By: Rokey 0 comments

When I was product manager for Heidelberg Japan’s imagesetter and RIP systems, the most common complaint from customers, co-workers and HQ management was the cost of Adobe’s PostScript and font licensing royalties. Behind the scenes Adobe was very adept at twisting arms to get the best licensing deals forcing Japanese OEMs to bundle very expensive high resolution Japanese PS fonts at 2,500 USD a font, whether the customer wanted them or not.

After watching Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite/CS 5.5 rollout pricing and talking with 3rd party tool developers, the same thing that happened with PostScript licensing is happening again: Adobe is twisting arms and threatening developers to shut out the competition and create a monopoly. In corporate suites and conference rooms Adobe is shaking down companies like WoodWing telling them they have no right to create digital publishing export products for CS InDesign. Only Adobe has the right to export content from InDesign to digital publishing on iOS and Android platforms.

This model is similar to the old Shaken Japanese typesetting business that disappeared in the 90’s. In order to use Shaken fonts, publishers bought a Shaken typesetter, paid a monthly royalty and a fee based on publishing volume. Adobe wants to bring it back. Elliot Jay Stocks has a good take on Adobe’s Digital Publishing pricing.Many Japanese publishers are dabbling with the second choice but really waiting to see what EPUB 3 brings. EPUB3 has support for vertical layout and about 50%, at best, of high end Japanese typography as outlined by the X4301 Japanese Industrial Standard specification. Iwata Font lead font programmer Tomahisa Uchida said, “EPUB 3 is better than what we have now but I’m worried that quality will decline.” Uchida san is right that despite all the power and potential that computers offer, they have yet to achieve the quality of traditional Japanese print methods for the mass market.

If Apple announces EPUB 3 and vertical layout support in Safari and iBook along with some Japanese publisher content deals at the expected WWDC iOS 5 announcement on June 6, Apple will get a big leg up on Google in the Japanese market. Such an announcement could kick start the Japanese digital publishing market into high gear.