back to article Adobe embroiled in War of the Fed-Ex Kinko Button

America's printing companies aren't too happy about the new FedEx Kinko's button that's turned up on Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader. Well, printing companies other than FedEx Kinko's. In June, Adobe and FedEx Kinko's announced new versions of Acrobat and Reader that include a button for sending PDF docs straight to FedEx Kinko' …

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  1. Mark Watson

    This is too simple...

    First, I believe we all know the profit motive behind the deal made with FedEx and Adobe. As to profit- we can all agree it is a righteous goal.

    However, take a look at your Firefox Browser. Notice the Search bar embedded in it. Did you know you can choose which search provider you want to conduct your search?

    It really should be this way with Adobe.

    In the race to make it even simpler to send print jobs to your local printer, just as we have added banks to our electronic checkbooks and payees to our electronic banking sites- we want to have access to any printer we want, in Adobe.

    It really should be All-or-nothing!

    So send the code out for the drop down menu adobe, and let all the members of the printing associations submit their entries. Now we can even then search for local printers via the Adobe software and select the ones we like nearest our offices or homes.

    This is not rocket science.

    Mark Watson

    Aurora, IL

    markrwatson07@gmail.com

  2. voshkin

    IMMEDIATELY

    “The company did not immediately respond to our requests for comment”

    The oldest trick in the journalistic dirty tricks book ;-) – fire off a fax five minutes before publication. No response? – Then the company did not IMMEDIATELY respond... they did not, so nothing is wrong, and the reader assumes that the company is hiding something...

    Not that I support Adobe in any way. This button deal is ridiculous. Stupid (read: average) users will think that the only way to print this document offsite is with FedEx.

    An ideal solution would be a website that would list all the printing companies, with prices and types of services offered – e.g. wet prints, laser prints, booklet printing... the user would then choose from a list based on a postcode or whatever other criteria preferred.

  3. Matthew Barker

    Rocket science

    Anyone who thinks this thing is simple should look into just what the

    functionality is and start thinking through how they'd implement this same

    service.

    I neither work for Kinko's nor do I work for Adobe.

    This is a hard problem that looks simple on the surface because they've made

    it easy for the user.

    If you don't believe me, start figuring it out on the process end, the business

    end, don't stop at the basic client engineering.

    Cheers,

    Matthew

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Claus P. Nielsen

    Security nightmare

    This type of buttons popping up in the program updates makes document security much harder.

    Imagine an employee accidentally hitting the wrong printer button when printing out a confidential document. The IT department of the company may not even know this button is there so they can block the service.

    Adobe may trust FedEx all they like, but for them to push this trust onwards to all customers is arrogant.

  6. o4tuna

    Mud Dancer

    I've thought Mud Dancer was a crap product for years. Proprietary crap!

    They should have been promoting DJVU.

    Well it's not too late:

    http://djvu.org/

  7. Parax

    hardly rocket science

    If i'd have built it, it'd work like this:

    1) Printers pay a listing subscription to adobe.

    2) Customer wants to print so clicks button and enters zip code.

    3) Adobe prtesents available (subscribed) printers in the vicinity

    4) Customer chooses which print shop to send docs to.

    5) Customer chooses to collect, or pay online and recieve in post.

    6) Customer rates printshop.

    Simple.

  8. Dave

    Security?

    If I was IT manager, or in charge of security, at a company with sensitive IP, I would want to disable the feature entirely, lest someone manage to send a confidential document out to be printed. Probably also true of government departments. I haven't tried out the button on principle, but I suspect it uses a method that would get through most firewalls.

  9. Adriaan Brink

    I disagree

    I totally disagree with you Matthew. If they have figured out the connections etc with Kinkos it would surely be a relatively small step to publish the interface and at the very least make it possible for users to 4replace fedex with "their favourite printer". Printers could be given a spec for the format of a file which they could send to their clients to morph the reader into "theirs".

    Where there is a will there is a way - Adobe has enough software guys on staff to sort this out pronto.

  10. A J Stiles

    PDF != proprietary format

    How exactly does this square with the laws against anti-competitive business practices?

    It's bad enough that Adobe have managed to persuade so many people that Acrobat Reader is the only thing that can display PDF documents, let alone that only one printing firm can print them. (I've taken to e-mailing webmasters who insist that Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view PDF files, and pointing out that this is not in fact the case: there are Open Source PDF readers and editors out there.)

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You what?

    Most of the world's population doesn't reside in the USA. Why should I have a button for something, when I don't even know what it is? A "Fed Ex Kinko". Sounds like some kind of fruit.

  12. tim chubb

    not a simple fix

    there are so many variables involved with printing that it would be next to impossible to create an 'open' interface for other printing companies to use, simply because they would all have to operate in the same way/use same stock/offer services they may not currently offer

    although a stupid bit of itegration to put it into acrobat, i think the service it offers is sound, although a simple dedicated client app would be more suited IMHO, just drag and drop the file to the app and fill out the forms, which reinforces the idea of sending to print, e.g. being printed off site rather than being churned out by the toner eating behemoth sat in the office corner

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've wondered for a while...

    What exactly is a Kinko and what belongs to it?

  14. Matthew Barker

    Still not so simple

    As I said, it's not so simple. Having worked on just such a product and service, I understand just how complicated this can be. Frankly, I don't know how far Adobe has taken this, but consider this 10k foot view of some of the factors to be considered...for EACH print provider (from which some of you will be able to infer further work that has to be put in):

    1/ how do you show the user (reliably) what their print job will look like?

    -- Note this has to correlate to the paper selections, the bindery selections,

    etc. that the particular provider has available on a per-location basis.

    There has to be a price associated with each printing variable and bindery operation. All of the operations or selections that can affect the final look of the print job have to be representable and price-able on the client machine. The information has to be updated in real-time from the particular storefront for the particular print provider...

    you don't want to send your important, urgent print job to a local store, not knowing what it might look like and also find out they're out of the particular paper you want. And if you're not going to show the user what it looks like, then there's no point in offering this linkage.

    2/ Data models to support all of the possible variables have to be worked out and

    verified...for each print provider. The structures have to be there in the back-end.

    3/ the ordering system has to be set up and reliable. The fulfillment and handling of refunds has to be reliable.

  15. Matthew Barker

    Re: You what?

    My experience is that Adobe does indeed provide some country-specific customisation of their products. (No, I don't own any of their products, nor do I work for them, nor do I like their PDF reader).

    This tempest-in-a-teapot is likely confined to North America, and maybe US. I don't know if FedEx/Kinkos are in Canada.

  16. Dillon Pyron

    I just don't use them

    I haven't used Kinko's in a long time. Probably 7 years now. They are usually higher priced and don't provide any services that I can't get elsewhere. And my preferred printer now has a secure ftp site (you need to have an sftp, they provide one on their site). So I don't even need to burn a CD. Besides which, they're a local company.

    I do use FedEx for shipping, so it's not a boycott against FedEx. It's not really even a boycott. It's purely convenience and pricing (Kinko's is five or six miles away, my local printer is about two).

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Kinkos

    There is one in Reading, UK. I haven't seen any others in the UK, mind.

  18. o4tuna

    Title

    By Fraser

    "I've wondered for a while...

    What exactly is a Kinko and what belongs to it?"

    Maybe this is it?

    Kinko The Clown

    By: Ogden Edsl

    Kinko, Kinko the Kid Loving Clown

    If the kids just love me back, I'll never wear a frown

    Kinko, Kinko the Kid Loving Clown

    If the kids just love me back, I'll never wear a frown

    Kinko's in his Kinko car

    pockets full of change

    lots of dirty pictures

    and sticky candy canes

    All the kids love Kinko for the presents that they get

    Silly leather clothes to wear and happy cigarettes

    Hi, boys and girls, my name is Kinko the Clown

    and I really love you boys and girls, really really

    But my legs get tired standing out in the parking lot

    handing out stale tootsie rolls to you little rugrats,

    so if anyone want to come back to Kinko's trailer

    and massage his legs, he'd really really like it

    Really really

    Kinko, Kinko the Kid Loving Clown

    If the kids just love me back, I'll never wear a frown

    Kinko, Kinko the Kid Loving Clown

    If the kids just love me back, I'll never wear a frown

    We go to Kinko's clubhouse sometimes after school

    We play in Kinko's crawlspace

    There's never any rules

    We have to sit on Kinko's lap

    There's never any chairs

    Kinko likes to tickle us

    and give us funny stares

    Oh gosh, I haven't had this much fun since last Christmas

    when I got to play Santa Claus and all the boys and girls

    got to sit on Kinko's lap.

    Little Boy: Mommy Mommy, Kinko hurt me!

    But that was in Indianapolis, and thanks to the liberal

    reciprocity laws, Kinko can be with you boys and girls

    today or anytime.

    Jimmy Johnson ran away and didn't say goodbye.

    Kinko went to look for him to help the FBI

    But Kinko had some handcuffs on

    His eyes were full of tears

    Said, "I'll be back to play with you sometime in 20 years."

    Kinko, Kinko the Kid Loving Clown

    The parents want to beat me up and run me out of town

    Kinko, Kinko the Kid Loving Clown

    Tar and feather Kinko and run him out of town

    Officer: OK Shorteyes, get in the car

    Good bye boys and girls

    GOODBYE KINKO

    See you at the turn of the century, cause Kinko

    really loves you boys and girls, really really

    I seem to remember the line "look kids there's a squirrel in Kinkos pocket" but it's not in this copy of the lyrics...

  19. Ben Brandwood

    Kinko

    There used to be a Kinko in Leeds, but it closed down a while ago, never seemed to any good business...

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