PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE IN THE PRINTING INDUSTRY
Introduction
The reprographic industry has commonly used proprietary hardware and software in the past. In recent years there has been a shift away from these principles with a movement towards more open software and hardware. After close investigation, and as an advocate of open source data structures and flexible workflow, I expected to say that proprietary software is dead, however I found evidence that it is alive and well and ready to make a comeback, especially in the reprographic and printing industry.
Defining proprietary
The first problem I had was to identify what proprietary software meant. Proprietary means; stand alone; to be independent; bespoke.
My initial thoughts on this subject took me back to the days of Crossfield and Scitex’s high end scanners and to typesetting systems, which where, by all definitions, proprietary. Many of these systems were custom built for a specific purpose, and the operators were specially trained in its operation. This gave benefits to the manufacturers, in that the systems were expensive and the client was tied to them and to the companies in that the staff were tied to them because their skills were not transferable. Later this situation turned to their disadvantage when costs of hardware reduced and the quality of the software increased.
Typesetting companies could not compete with DTP systems, Reprographic companies could not compete with digital imagesetters and high-end drum scanners could not compete with flatbeds. The main issue was justifying the cost to performance gained. The high-end systems could not compete with the desktop computers in cost and rarely in performance.
*Proprietary systems went out of fashion and proved to be a bad thing; open source was the new king with a flexible workforce and data formats. Postscript was at the helm with PDF, HTML, JAVA, XML (and (A) Linux) as its followers. Today everything seems to be open source or non-proprietary, however this may not always be the case. The interface, purpose and the performance of software may be similar but the underlying technology may not.
So what is non-proprietary?
By definition this must be the opposite of proprietary: allow the easy transference of skills and data between different systems; to be flexible, adaptable and able to perform a variety of functions; it must not create a dead-end.
Today we do not tend to think about proprietary issues. Our data is easily transferable between different systems; PC files can be worked on the Mac and other platforms, and we often do this without a second thought. Our skills are transferable to a greater extent and we are more flexible. But have we washed our hands of proprietary systems, or indeed should we. Proprietary hardware and software give advantages to the User, giving them facilities that are not available on other systems, but can tie you in to a legacy system that can be difficult to be extracted from at a later date if the market changes.
* The cost of proprietary systems drove them out of business
(A) Linux is an o/s and compares with UNIX or Windows NT/2000
So let's identify proprietary software
What is proprietary now? It could be said that all software is proprietary but the data is non-proprietary. All software is developed for a particular platform and OS and is not (readily) transportable, but the data can be made to flow freely if used effectively. To a certain extent this is true, but not in all cases. Let's look at the three major software packages in the printing industry; QuarkXPress, Adobe PhotoShop and Illustrator.
The Adobe products are able to import data from a variety of sources, and has an open architecture to allow easy transference of data between them. The interfaces are consistent to allow easy transference of skills between applications and other Adobe products. Also, as their interface has been adopted by similar software manufactures, between other packages. They do have a proprietary format; .psd in PhotoShop and .ai in Illustrator, but they have a variety of other formats to export into other packages, but even these proprietary formats are able to be imported into some applications. It could therefore be concluded that the Adobe products are non-proprietary as the skills and data is transferable and the software does not lead you to a dead-end.
QuarkXPress on the other hand is proprietary. It can import all sorts of files but it is a data dead-end (B). There are limited possibilities to transfer the data to another applications and you are limited in what you can do with it afterwards. There are only limited export functions, which are not very flexible, and its file format (.qxd) can only be read by itself. Until recently it even had limited backward compatibility. As it is the only main package used in the professional DTP field (no fault of Quark) it is difficult to say if the skills are transferable (C). The emergence of the better Adobe In-Design 2.0 may change this over time. However the system of working in Quark is not similar to other packages.
A similarity can be found in a variety of “end product” applications like QuarkXPress, where it is the final application to be used in the design production process. In web design applications like Dreamweaver, Freeway and Go Live offer a dead end for data, and the same can be said for Director, Flash, Premier and a large number of other media products. The data may be interchangeable but the final product is not, except between similar products; Quark will import to In-Design, Freeway will open in Dreamweaver but Dreamweaver will not go into Quark etc. However the days of this may soon be over. XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language), in many cases, has the ability to change this, but the adoption of this strategy, at this moment in time, should be carefully investigated first. User friendly solutions, which no doubt will be proprietary, are a long way off. XML is an open source programming language and adopts the principles of all mark-up languages, and is therefore non-proprietary and familiar. This strategy will enable proprietary (end of line) products, which share the same data, to work together more efficiently, i.e. you change something in In-Design and it updates the website and Dreamweaver at the same time. An improvement to the “make once – use many” principal. It works seamlessly with text, images and other data, but must be appropriately XML tagged. The User friendly software to enable you to do this will undoubtedly be proprietary and will add a vast wealth of other potentials in project management (see below).
(B) Not quite true as XML extension now allows the data to be reformatted into other applications.
(C) The whole point about QuarkXpress being an industry standard is that skills are transferable.
What other systems are proprietary
Any software that comes with a device is normally proprietary. Sometimes they may work within other applications, Plug-ins for PhotoShop etc, but they are built for a specific purpose and only work with a set range of devices. Scanning software, hard disk drivers, digital camera software and printer RIPs are examples of these. However it is important that you do not get confused between 'easy to use' and proprietary. Scanning software may be similar but is different in the way it controls the device and interpret the data. Often the major cost of scanners is the software. It is for this reason there is still a good market for high quality scanning software like Binuscan.
Reprographic companies have often used proprietary systems in the past, and have experience in this area, from their initial change to digital through to developing their PDF workflow and colour management systems. However these are generally hardware dedicated and come as a package from hardware manufacturers. Agfa products are a good example of this with their reprographic and workflow solutions offering a complete package.
XML
We are now seeing a new emergence of proprietary software with the development of XML workflow solutions. Applications are now developed to use this meta language at the core of production management solutions and workflow control systems. As the production side is moving into this area it makes sense for the management systems also to, to maximise its potential. These are generally proprietary systems and you have to “buy-in” to the whole, or part, of the system. Careful consideration is needed when a large investment is made that ties you into a dedicated system. Technologically redundant MIS systems litter corporate 'trash cans' (D). Proprietary systems often look good in the short-term (E) but these systems need to have a long life and the future must be carefully considered. Careful consultation needs to be made with the software developers to ensure that the product suits your requirements and that there will good future support. Proprietary systems also require a great deal of strategic implementation and training, and often require a re-evaluation of the existing workflow. The quality of feedback given from these companies is often a good indicator to their potential future support.
However these systems can also play havoc with third parties or external suppliers. A publisher may love their MIS system which enables them to see the status of their products, but it will mean the reprohouses or printers will need to be tied into their system (F). Fine, but if you five clients with different MIS systems and you have to train your staff how to use it, it can add a great deal of complexity to the supplier. The integration of these technologies, which are based on similar technologies, is a possible area for future development.
(D) What do you really mean by this?
(E) Most printing MIS systems now use 'open platforms' but are still proprietary.
(F) Not necessarily.
Conclusion
So we still seem to be surrounded by proprietary software. It often has many advantages and performs specialised tasks, like controlling printers, managing colour, driving hardware etc. These types of products are normally built by hardware manufacturers to optimise their products and generally don’t cause any problems as long as they can be integrated successfully.
Larger proprietary applications, which are now being introduced to manage the production process at a variety of levels, which tie you into large systems cause the greatest concern for adoption, and lessons from the past need to be reflected upon. It is easy to buy into the wrong system, and even if you buy the right one radical improvements should not be expected in the short term, as these often take a time to “bed-in” (G). Also an important consideration is the integration of technologies which will enable other systems to handle the same data, in exactly the same way as the Adobe software interchanges code, to allow for easy interchanges of data.
Generally software on the creation side of the digital process is non proprietary, except in a few cases, and the flexibility of the data is enormous. The development of Postscript level 3 and PDF files with reprographic potential has improved the adoption of this strategy in the printing industry, enabling high end reprographic solutions to be applied to a larger potential base of creation software.
Non Proprietary software offers the greatest flexibility in both usage skill level and staff availability, and the trend is for all developments to go this way. But it does not always perform the high-end tasks that you require as a professional, or to the required quality. It is at this point that proprietary software steps in to enhance the relationship between hardware, software and the User. “Simple is best” principals often always give the best result.