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Adobe Catches Flak For FedEx Kinko Deal

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

July 30, 2007, 3:30 PM

Adobe is facing criticism over its decision to include a prominent button in the software that allows its users to print their .PDF files at a local FedEx Kinko's.

FedEx saw the deal as the way to continue building momentum for its Kinko's unit which it acquired in 2004. Since .PDF has become the business standard for documents, aligning with Adobe seemed like a logical decision. However, some Adobe customers weren't too happy about it.

The loudest objections come from those who fear they may lose business to a competitor, especially those "mom and pop" establishments who may not have a large customer base to begin with. The button appears in both the Acrobat and Reader software.

According to these groups, with no way for smaller companies to add a similar feature into Adobe, some of their customers may opt instead to print with FedEx Kinko's due to the convenience factor. These concerns are not falling on deaf ears at Adobe.

Officials at the company met with several printing company executives about two weeks ago to explain their position. Adobe plans to issue an official response to their concerns on Wednesday. FedEx has defended the feature as being "established with our customers in mind."

Shortly after the meeting in mid-July, Adobe senior vice president for the Creative Solutions Business Unit John Loiacono said the company had learned several "painful" lessons over the weeks following the release of the feature in June.

"The reaction was immediate, strong, and negative," he wrote. However, he said through the meeting that "at the core, we all want to work together, support each other, and ultimately, succeed together."

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By ogman

posted Aug 1, 2007 - 10:39 AM

FedEx has defended the feature as being "established with our customers in mind."

Yeah, that's a sure sign that somebody's getting screwed.

Score: 0

By StevenFR8

edited Jul 31, 2007 - 9:07 PM

You have to remember that the people who are upset with Adobe are customers that have alot of money tied up in Adobe software. The free reader software does not keep Adobe in buisness! Without the people who buy the professional software, the majority of which are in competition with Fedex Kinkos to some extent, Adobe has a very small income stream that would not keep them in buisness....

What do you think would happen if the bakeries that make the hamburger buns for Mc Donalds suddenly printed a eat at Burgerking sign on top of those buns.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Jul 31, 2007 - 10:40 PM

Your post makes absolutely no sense. And for that, my friend, I commend you!

Score: 0

By ogman

edited Aug 1, 2007 - 10:38 AM

Actually, it made perfect sense and was well stated. Adobe may find themselves losing a huge amount of their customer base because they got greedy.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Aug 1, 2007 - 11:55 AM

"What do you think would happen if the bakeries that make the hamburger buns for Mc Donalds suddenly printed a eat at Burgerking sign on top of those buns."

It is this statement that I find ridiculous. McDonald's has a pre-existing relationship with the companies it contracts out, the buns, burgers, what have you are expected to look taste, and feel a certain way. These companies don't stamp burger king on their buns because it would be a breach of contract and they would be both sued and expected to pay for damages as a result.

Adobe has no existing relationship with independent printing shops, they don't have existing relationships with lots of companies that profit from adobe products. It is part of doing business to watch the world change. Just because you have a business model that works today, it won't work tomorrow (read: newspaper advertising.) A proper analogy would be if a company in a business relationship with adobe suddenly found another companie's icon on adobe's toolbars. And that hasn't happened.

Score: 0

By ogman

posted Aug 2, 2007 - 9:32 AM

"Adobe has no existing relationship with independent printing shops"

Yes, they do. Hopefully you've figured that out by now.

Score: 0

By omicron123

edited Jul 31, 2007 - 11:38 AM

check out Mimeo.com...by far an easier and more efficent way to create custom business documents right from your desktop!

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Jul 31, 2007 - 12:57 PM

Or I can print to Kinko's (which is less than a block away) and pick it up in under an hour.

hmmm.... I wonder.

Score: 0

By johnusa

posted Jul 31, 2007 - 12:09 PM

How to Remove "FedEX Kinko" button:
In Acrobat Reader, right-click menu buttons bar and on the bottom click on "More Tools".
In "File Toolbar" uncheck "Send To FedEx Kinko"
That is all.
Enjoy.

Score: 0

By gabriellenic

edited Jul 31, 2007 - 12:33 AM

Unfortunately, competition is fierce for mom and pops in all aspects of business as mega-powers emerge. This is the nature of the beast we call capitalism that has created a land of great opportunity.

Score: 0

By sacaripasa

posted Jul 30, 2007 - 9:46 PM

FedEx Kinkos lost some custy base when FedEx moved in and at least in the Mid-Atlantic market had some pretty big technical issues with the new POS machines, POOR sales support in the stores, so long lines drove people away. This just sounds like FedEx trying to win back some of them.

Score: 0

By skorpian

posted Jul 30, 2007 - 8:03 PM

How is this any different than having the option to print your pictures from within Picasa (owned by Google)? Is this limiting the options for people to print it at other places or is it just a convenient button?

Score: 0

By Packet

edited Jul 31, 2007 - 12:42 AM

The differences that I see are, a) Picasa is really only one service among many out there for pictures, and b) you are /uploading/ your images to that service, but the service is not a necessary component of using your pictures.

In contrast, for your average Windows user, if you want to view a PDF you are using Adobe Reader. It's not as if you have the content and are choosing to upload it to a service; you generally must use the provided reader in order to view the content.

If you thus have a simple button of 'print this out and pick it up at your local Kinko's,' many people will do that for the sake of convenience. And that button is basically there for every single PDF you view. This means people who might previously have downloaded a 300-page PDF and taken it to a smaller neighborhood shop to get it printed out may well now just click that button and pick up the printout at Kinko's instead. Convenient!

But also something unfortunate for any of the other shops, which is probably why they are feeling stung. It is as if Adobe is endorsing Kinko's over all the other shops, recommending it to their customers. Which is fine; there is no reason they cannot. But it is not going to be popular with non-Kinko's shops.

Score: 0

By ogman

posted Aug 1, 2007 - 10:41 AM

Correct. And, since those shops purchase Adobe software, Adobe stands to lose a lot of business by offending them.

Score: 0

By TexGEOas

edited Jul 30, 2007 - 6:13 PM

Over 50,000 print shops were loyal customers of Adobe. Adobe was a neutral supplier of excellent products to them. Now, Adobe (for cash) has chosen ONE of them to favor with an exclusive "Print this at Kinko's" button in 500,000,000+ copies of Reader to the exclusion of all the other former loyal print shops and designers.

And, you "don't see a problem with that"?

What if Hewlett-Packard made a deal to print a watermark for Kinko's on every page printed by its printers. Down with that? Same thing. It's an inappropriate use of its market position.

You must not own a business on your own.

TexGEOas

Score: 0

By ogman

posted Aug 1, 2007 - 10:42 AM

Finally, somebody who gets it!

Score: 0

By jspratjr

posted Jul 31, 2007 - 6:52 AM

No, I don't see a problem with that - printing a watermark does not give the consumer a choice (even if it can be removed, it's an inconvenience - a button doesn't provide the same inconvenience, it's a choice).

Sounds like a smart business move for Kinko's and it's Adobe's choice (it is their product right?) to favor who they want - nothing more.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Jul 30, 2007 - 9:01 PM

The button doesn't reduce the ability to print anywhere else.

It's a free product.

Competition is fierce. Printers don't like it? build a competing technology.

Score: 0

By ogman

posted Aug 1, 2007 - 10:46 AM

Wow, you're thick! Those printers are a major part of Adobe's customer base. If they stop buying Adobe software, the losses will be huge. Abobe figured that out after the fact and now they are trying to do damage control.

The printers won't build a competing technology, they are already out there. Some are open-source and some are made by Adobe's competition. Unless Adobe cleans this up quickly, they will lose a good amount of their market share.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Jul 30, 2007 - 4:52 PM

The reader product I don't see a problem with. It's a free product.

The professional version users paid for one version, and they received essentially an advertisement as a result. I would be steamed, although not too badly, if I were an Acrobat 8 user.

We can't use acrobat version 8 because the USPTO still doesn't accept it for form submittal:
http://www.uspto.gov/ebc/portal/forms.htm

Score: 0

By swattz101

posted Jul 31, 2007 - 3:03 AM

I can see the button in the free reader, but maybe make it an API or add-in for the full paid version. Maybe they can make some sort of add-in that the mom & pop stores can use if they accept pdf's online. I don't know what printer we use at work, but I know they prefer PDF's and charge more if they have to convert them. We usually send them by email.

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

edited Jul 30, 2007 - 4:45 PM

So, let's criticize Microsoft for "forcing" their own features to customers integrated in Windows while we "force" customers to use one specific shipping company.

Hypocracy? You decide.

(note: I put "forcing" and "force" in quotes because that's the complaints used, not because I think either case is truley "forced".)

Score: 0

By kbsoftware

posted Jul 30, 2007 - 7:07 PM

We are also criticizing Adobe for doing the same.

Score: 0

By kbsoftware

edited Jul 30, 2007 - 4:20 PM

The mom and pop shops and so forth are right, this can be very bad for their business.

"at the core, we all want to work together, upport each other, and ultimately, succeed together."

It won't take long before we all know what exactly Adobe means with the quoted statement. I'm curious to see myself.

I buy a lot of books and magazines subscriptions in pdf format, a lot cheaper then buying it on paper so if Adobe does a "Microsoft" move I will be asking to I buy from to switch to djvu or something else. With little fan fare I'm sure but it has to start somewhere with someone.

Score: 0

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