The Biz of Coding

Network Publishing : Understanding Adobe Creative Suite 3

by Ujwal Tickoo on April 5th, 2007

This post continues from my previous post Adobe Announces Creative Suite 3.

Adobe didn't merely acquire Macromedia to get Flash (& related revenue) in its stable. There was a deeper reason. At a strategic level, Adobe needed Macromedia to further its vision of Network Publishing. Creative Suite 3 is a major step forward in that direction. Without key Macromedia products, technologies, and user insights there were gaps in Adobe's own products, market understanding, and technology assets – to fulfill its Network Publishing Vision.

Network Publishing is the 3rd wave of publishing after Desktop Publishing (‘80s) and traditional Web Publishing (’90s). The goal is to “create, manage, and deliver personalized content reliably Anywhere, Anytime on any device.” Adobe's Creative Suite 3 Premium has InDesign, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, and Acrobat – all applications that would allow a user to create and publish content for Print, Web or Mobile Devices.

  

A peek Into History : Web Publishing Revolution and Adobe's Response
Till mid-90s, Adobe’s Core Customers were Creative Professionals mainly in Print Publishing and Digital Video. Adobe’s Customer Intimacy was considerable with the Creative Print Professionals. However, this strength was a weakness too! Solving the “Content & Layout Reuse” problem was assumed to be Key to solving Print and Web Publishing problems in one swoop by Adobe.

Thus, when the Web Revolution started Adobe’s initial effort was to drive the Creative Professionals from Print toward Web Publishing, by (1) buying GoLive, (2) offering PDF for publishing print documents/forms on the web.

Web Sites to Web Applications — Adobe's Nightmare

Web sites however evolved into Applications. People starting doing Commerce and Collaboration on the Web besides accessing Content. Adobe was not ready with customer insights and technologies to quickly move beyond the Content mindset and later from Web access on PC to Mobile Devices opportunity. Macromedia however was in the drivers seat with Flash and Dreamweaver.
 

 

 

 

 

In its attempt to deal with the fast changing Web, Adobe released & shelved 3 products attempting to cope with web publishing:

• PageMill (1996-2000. Discontinued on Feb 15, 2000 in favor of GoLive)
• ImageStyler (1998-2000. discontinued in 2000 some functionality merged in PS/IR)
• LiveMotion (2000-2003. Discontinued on Feb 15, 2003)

Adobe incorrectly assumed that Content and Layout for Print could be "seamlessly repurposed" for Web using a Page Layout Tool like PageMaker or InDesign. (To some extent Adobe's print competitor, Quark still propagates this belief in QuarkXPress.) Web Layouts typically have text and images in rectangular regions unlike print where complex image wrap arounds are common and column width is fixed. Adobe inadvertently was focusing on first generation of web pages – publishing primarily static information “Brochure Ware”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides the obvious difference of living in HTML; Web Design has several differences from Print Design.

Continued… Print & Web Design Differences

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POSTED IN: Adobe