giving Adobe InDesign for free?
Will Adobe manage to replace industry work horse Quark XPress by
giving Adobe InDesign for free?
By S. Steele and Galina Arlov
Heard about the Quark \”killer\”?
Adobe InDesign CS2. Will it really \”kill\” Quark? Adobe has been
saying \”it will\” for the last six years or so, but it hasn\’t
happened. Adobe Pagemaker didn\’t kill Quark, either, but was
instead replaced by InDesign. And InDesign is also at a distant
second place so far.
Let\’s start by saying that it would be a good idea to wait for
any new purchases or \”conversions\” until the upcoming release of
the next version of Quark Xpress.
Some of the features that Quark has unveiled (Job Jackets for
example, for workflow streamlining and increased productivity)
as part of their new version, in our view are very compelling
and offer more value than InDesign.
Other features are necessary updates that fulfill current needs
and put it on par with available technologies currently provided
by other programs (i.e. transparency support, Open Type font
support, etc, so InDesign and Quark have standard common
features). There are plenty of reviews out there detailing all
the new features of Quark and we encourage you to read them, you
will find the new Quark a very useful ally in your road to
productivity.
*** Adobe: positioning a product at any cost
Recently Adobe acquired Macromedia, because Adobe couldn\’t
compete with Macromedia\’s web software, another area where Adobe
is weak. In our view and that of many people we interviewed,
that was the only way Adobe could obtain a leading position in
the web design arena: by buying out their competition. The lead
Adobe has with Photoshop, doesn\’t translate to a lead in other
fields.
For the last few years, Adobe has been trying to position
InDesign against Quark as the leader in the publishing area
without success.
*** Bundling InDesign: the key strategy of Adobe to gain market
share
The strategy used by Adobe is very similar to some of the
strategies Microsoft has used in the past to eliminate their
competition.
It\’s a well-known fact (painstakingly proven by Microsoft) that
among other things you can do to gain market share, you can kill
your competition by giving your product for free (or way below
the real cost of the product) and forcing people to acquire it
through bundling or embedding it with other necessary software
that people MUST buy anyway.
Which is one of the reasons why Microsoft has been sued in every
country they have sold software. They have engaged always in
proven, documented unfair and illegal competition practices; and
their \”product bundling\” practices force consumers to use
products that they would have never looked at otherwise. Adobe
is doing the same.
Of course, Adobe can say that InDesign sold alone has a street
price. But, like everybody else in the field of graphic design,
you MUST buy Photoshop, and very likely, Illustrator or/and
Acrobat. If you compare the price you must pay for these
applications, it becomes cheaper to buy the full Creative Suite.
And you get for the same price, InDesign, GoLive, ImageReady,
and other things that come bundled in for free.
So the situation is that people are getting InDesign as part of
a bundle. In other words, for free. See the price comparison we
included to verify this. And don\’t forget that the upgrade
versions are even cheaper (usually 50% off or more)!.
For reference, just check out the prices: Creative Suite 2 full
(includes Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, InDesign CS2, Adobe
Bridge, GoLive CS2, Acrobat 7.0 professional, Version Cue CS2,
and more. Only for $1119.12, the highest price I found, at:
http://www.provantage.com/buy-7EMRL9K3-creative-suite-2-premium-
mac-adobe-systems-retail-18040290-shopping.htm. There are other,
much lower prices out there for the full version or the upgrades.
*** Compare with purchasing the individual products: the full
cost of the retail versions is:
Adobe Acrobat 1 user: $383.73 Adobe Golive $386.15 Adobe
Illustrator $480.67 Adobe InDesign $676.79 Adobe Photoshop
$548.51 (only Photoshop + Illustrator are $1030 at these prices)
The value of the retail products is $2475.85. so, InDesign is
absolutely FREE.
*** Compare with Quark 6.5 that retails at $707. Upgrades are
priced lower.
http://www.atomicpark.com/xq/aspx/quark/prodline.y/
familyid.6123/buy.software/qx/productlist.html
So, after verifying that in fact we are getting InDesign for
\”free\” and assuming that Quark was successfully muscled out of
the market, for how long do you think that InDesign would remain
\”free\”? not long. It would be unbundled right away, and sold
separately. Think of programs such as Premiere, etc.
In this market, eliminating your competition means also
eliminating the reasons to innovate. Historically, competition
proves beneficial to the end user, assuming that it is done with
fairness, focusing in product quality to win the user, instead
of resorting to a marketing, sales and business strategy to
trick the user into \”converting\”.
*** Cost is a part of the equation
Think about it: entities such as universities need to cut costs,
and they teach students the software that they will use in their
future jobs, so getting the software for free is a HUGE
incentive to switch. We have read about some people saying in
their advertising-paid columns that several universities (which
ones, exactly?) are saying that they will soon switch to
InDesign (when will they switch, exactly?). That sounds kinda
cheesy given the fact that you need to know Quark to get a job
nowadays, anywhere. The reason being manifested is mainly
economic, without any practical reasons actually mentioned to
justify such a decision. However, that choice will likely mark
the future of many designers out there who will likely find
themselves subject to having to take additional training courses
to learn BOTH programs. Not funny at all.
There is nothing like a \”free lunch\”. So how much does it really
cost to \”switch\”?
*** Training time: Quark 12 hrs vs. InDesign 50+ hours to
migrate, 3-6 months learning curve.
In our experience of several years providing training and
private/group coaching to hundreds of students in the use of
Adobe / Quark software, the average training time required to
learn InDesign up to an advanced level, is usually about 32
hours, and involves a much longer training curve to become an
expert user (usually 50+ hours) if you don\’t have any previous
experience with Adobe products, particularly if you need to use
the integration features of the Adobe Creative suite (Adobe
Bridge, etc.), learn to use third party plugins, styles,
compatible features from other Adobe programs, etc.
*** Mastering the program takes at least 3-6 months of use,
after receiving full training.
Most people who take InDesign seriously enough to migrate, will
spend a lot of time in re-training (see above) and many more
months of researching and re-learning things (the dreaded
\”learning curve\”) will be spent outside of the training room,
figuring out how to do things that they already knew how to do
well with Quark. That\’s some very expensive \”converting\”. Did
you know that it was going to be that long? All that lost time
is lost productivity, and therefore lost money (and lost
nights), too.
Of course some users will tell you that they already know
InDesign and it was easy to learn. You bet they were old Adobe
Suite users already. Unless they are seasoned pros, with 10+
years in the field, knowing every nook and cranny of most
graphic design programs, particularly Adobe programs, it is VERY
unlikely it was a short time learning InDesign. But if they are
truly novice users, ask them how long it really took them to
master (if they do) InDesign. You\’ll be surprised at the
answers. Most people use barely 20-25% of the program, because
learning the whole thing is overwhelming in practice.
Compare this with Quark training, where in barely 8 hours or
less you can be working with most program options. Quark
advanced level is achieved in 16 hours, and expert level in 24
hours. AND you don\’t need experience with other Adobe programs.
In our experience, mastery of the program is at your fingertips,
since mostly everything you need to do is rather easy to achieve
in Quark and there are myriads of tutorials on the Internet
documenting every imaginable Quark trick.
In other words, training in InDesign takes 2 – 3 times more than
learning Quark. And the learning curve is much higher than
Quark, since you need to learn to \”integrate\” InDesign with
other applications that you may or may not know. The novice user
will have the hardest time, since he will be expected to learn
not only one but at least other 2 or 3 programs (Photoshop and
Illustrator, and lately, Acrobat) in order to be able to use
InDesign to its fullest potential.
Which is one of the most overwhelming reasons we have seen
always for people choosing Quark over InDesign over the years: A
kid can use Quark. It\’s easy. In fact, many parts of the
interface used by InDesign, are very similar to the one
developed by Quark. Adobe decided to do things the way Quark was
doing things in order to improve their program.
Why? Adobe had to design something that could be easily related
to Quark, in order to facilitate the transition from Quark to
InDesign, since PageMaker failed to convert people to Adobe\’s
way of doing layouts, as it was a lower-end, very expensive and
limited program that couldn\’t remotely compete with a high-end
program such as Quark. For these and other reasons, Pagemaker
always played second to the Quark powerhouse, even to programs
such as MS Publisher, which are cheaper and more powerful.
*** Training Costs:
Let\’s think now about the training costs involved in switching
all your designers to the new software. Training costs for 2
people only are more expensive than buying the full Creative
Suite 2. That is, from $349 – $800 in average per person, for
the 8-hr, 1 day seminar only. Usually 3 days are required, or
$2400+ (group) – $5400 (individual), for up to 6 people. In some
cases, it can be higher depending on other factors. These are
corporate training prices, according to the prices of several
schools in New York that provide this training and don\’t include
advanced or expert training costs, nor do they include the costs
of learning additional Adobe programs, or the integration
features. So the real cost of learning InDesign is much higher
than Quark. Quark, average training price on the streets: $199.
*** Hardware costs:
Now include the cost of buying new computers (since you will
need to get a new computer to run InDesign due to the sluggish
performance that the new Creative Suite 2 has unless you have a
3 GHZ+ CPU Pentium IV or a MAC G5 with 1 – 2GB RAM or more
computer). If you have a 2GHZ and 512mb ram, forget it, your
computer is not good enough for the creative suite 2. And don\’t
even think about installing it on your laptop and run several
applications at the same time, or you will be waiting for a very
long time to do anything.
Because let\’s face it, older computers (let\’s say 1 year old)
will choke and kill your productivity trying to run the new
Creative Suite 2, and waiting for anything to load, and run. You
need a new computer to run the software, period. And if someone
tries to say otherwise, try to run Photoshop, Illustrator and
Indesign plus Adobe Bridge at the same time in your laptop, to
take full advantage of the \”integrated\” features of Creative
Suite 2. Have fun waiting while your competition is selling to
your clients. A new MAC computer with the necessary specs will
cost you in average $2000, not including the price of the
warranty for your new computer.
So, after totaling the cost of installing and getting your
people and equipment up to speed in the migration to InDesign,
you will have spent in average about $5000 or more per user,
including the licensing and the necessary hardware, etc. This is
far, far more expensive than just upgrading to the next version
of Quark. If you are a medium-sized company, it\’s going to be,
let\’s say a hundred thousand dollars in training, learning
curve, lost productivity expenses, new equipment, and software
licenses. If you are a large corporation, your cost is in the
millions. Yay!
Did you think about that one yet?
*** Is there truly a reason to switch?
Overall, compelling arguments to choose InDesign over Quark are
difficult to find, even among those who have already made the
jump. We will see what the new version of Quark brings.
Adobe still has to deal with the WHOLE industry being trained in
Quark. It would seem obvious that Quark is wisening up,
improving their customer support, asking users what they need,
analyzing and creating tools to improve production flow, and
thinking ahead in order to bring enhanced, truly compelling
productivity features, and this is a good thing for users.
It remains to be seen if people are going to dump their existing
life-time expertise, spend their money in new training and
invest in new hardware and software to make Adobe feel satisfied
about their sales and stock profits.
*** In our view, simplicity wins always.
Adobe wants design professionals to adopt a far more complex,
harder to learn, more expensive to run and more difficult to
handle program (InDesign) over a simpler, easier to use, and
much more intuitive program: Quark. That makes no sense.
We think that INSECURITY is not really a reason to switch. Which
is the desired result of the marketing strategy of \”the whole
industry is moving to InDesign, what are you doing?\” that Adobe
has been running for several years. Why would you switch
otherwise, particularly considering that the upcoming version of
Quark is far more powerful and productivity-enhancing than
InDesign? We think Quark is living up to their promises and will
deliver a superior product. We shall see if they manage to do
what they have promised.
Right now, don\’t buy anything unless you have a very specific
and particular need that ONLY InDesign could possibly satisfy,
and that will not be provided in an upcoming version of Quark.
What might that be?
Please feel free to publish this article and resource box in
your e-zine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy
would be appreciated at articles@ptedu.com and
articles@valorcrossmedia.com
About the author:
S. Steele is a Multimedia and IT expert with more than 15 years
of experience in the field and he is also a design teacher at a
prestigious design school in NYC specialized in providing
services to Fortune 500 companies. http://www.ptedu.com
Galina Arlov is the creator and founder of Valor Cross Media,
http://www.valorcrossmedia.com a Web Site Services, E-Marketing
and Online Advertising company based in New York City on the
Upper East Side.