Monday, April 11, 2005
The iTunes Music Store Lesson (Updated)
Adobe is going to see if the iTunes Music Store method of selling rights-managed media will work on a much more expensive level. From their new, Creative Suite 2, graphic design applications, designers will be able to comp and purchase stock photos for their designs without having to leave whichever program that they find themselves using--allowing a more seamless work flow in the same way that music can be purchased through iTunes without ever leaving the application.
Adobe Stock Photos lets designers download non-watermarked comp images from an elite selection of image providers and then purchase them, without leaving such applications as Photoshop and InDesign. “Adobe Stock Photos is an innovative offering for creative professionals and we’re pleased to be one of the stock photo agencies to launch with this service,” stated Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of Jupitermedia Corporation. “With the great brand loyalty Adobe has built amongst creative professionals, this will be a tremendous new distribution channel for our images,” added Meckler.
I’m sure that there will be some part of the sale that ends up in Adobe’s pocket--likely little more than enough to cover development and support costs--but the real value comes from selling a more useful application to users like me. With Quark finally getting around to releasing a new version of Xpress, Adobe likely sees this as an opportunity to continue to make inroads with customers who grew tired of dealing with Quark and the exceptionally slow Xpress development cycle.
Professional graphic designers generally use Photoshop since there really is no other professional level image manipulation program in production; everything else is, honestly, an also ran. For page layout and illustration, though, the crowd has long been split between Adobe and its competitors, with Adobe spending the last few years clawing their way back to prominence in the page layout arena. With designers being opinionated and stubborn creatures of habit, there has to be a compelling reason to change loyalties in design applications (and in operating systems, but that’s another story altogether); by adopting a value add in the iTMS vein, Adobe is trying to give users that good reason to switch.
Would iPods, the part of the entire music service that makes money for Apple, have been as popular without the software and the integration of services? Probably not. As an Adobe fan (I use Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, and GoLive on a nearly daily basis), I hope that this is successful; as a professional designer, I hope that it’s as useful as it sounds.
Update: Adobe is also releasing Acrobat 7.0 reader for Linux. Cool.
(0)
Comments & Trackbacks
I use PS, ID, and Acrobat, but not Illustrator or GoLive. Not much call for either of those, really, and I landed in Dreamweaver land long ago, so never tried GoLive. Now, I’m just using WebDesign, a shareware title for web stuff.
The proof will be in the pudding on this one. I’m not always crazy about Adobe having such a lock on the graphics business.
I’m an Adobe guy, so I know I’m a little biased, but I’m actually happy that Adobe got back into the page layout business--InDesign is a much better app than PageMaker was or Quark is. I’m surprised you don’t use Illustrator (or Freehand) much, though--after Photoshop, that’s my most used application.
I think the two things that define the success of this part of the new applications will be price and easy integration. Will you have to fill out forms to figure out what rights you need to purchase or will it be an easier, more streamlined process? Will it fit into the workflow easily or will it be a pain to use? I’m curious enough that I want to get back on that bleeding edge, though…
Well, you’ve got to remember my background is more in news layout, with a heavy emphasis in Quark. I used Photoshop more when I was a photographer. But I agree with you about InDesign. I never really liked PageMaker. Quark was just way more robust. InDesign 2 with native OS 10 was what finally got me to switch. Since then, I’ve played around with Quark 6, but never was tempted to go back.
If I was doing more original artwork, I’d probably be using freehand more. As is, I guess I’m more used to the tools in Photoshop.
And yes, the rights management issue is going to be key to this, along with price. Remember that iTunes picked a perfect price point to sell at. I think what would really make sense from the iTunes model would be fonts. Like if someone could actually purchase fonts and download them through fontbook, at like $25 for a family. As much as designers never met a new font they wouldn’t use on a layout, there’s got to be a market for easy-to-purchase fonts. I realize that’s hopelessly romantic and entirely non-realistic, but one can dream ...
Huh. The font idea is a great idea. Absolutely brilliant if you can easily get through the rights management issues. You should suggest the idea to Apple and see if you you could get a free new computer for your trouble.
Quark started calling me last month to try to get us to upgrade to 6.0, but, honestly, I don’t really want to leave InDesign and I really don’t want to pay the hefty upgrade fee for Quark. InDesign seems to work better for me and it costs less--that’s a pretty good combination.
The very idea that Quark is calling you to try to get you to upgrade shows how much Adobe is cutting into their base. Three years ago, quark wouldn’t give the time of day to anyone. Trying to get an educational discount was like going on an african safari. Now, they’re making the rounds at professional conferences, trying to get back all the people they lost.
somehow, I suspect they’ve lost the edge for good. I don’t see them ever being as dominant as they were four years ago. Besides, what else does Quark have? They don’t have fonts. They don’t have image editing. They don’t have illustration software. They just now bothered to get into web conversion. And they don’t even really have pdf. Everything that’s crucial to an online world is being developed by Adobe and Macromedia, while Quark just sat on their golden goose (the recalcitrant publishing/printing industry) thinking it would keep giving out them golden eggs.
I might have to mention the idea to apple.