Are DTP suppliers committed to magazine publishers?

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, August, 1989 by James E. Strothman

Are DTP suppliers committed to magazine publishers?

With desktop publishing hype and hoopla swirling all around, magazine publishers and production directors wonder: How committed are desktop vendors to providing hardware and software specifically designed to solve magazines' production problems?

Not as committed as publishers might like, according to leading desktop systems suppliers and industry consultants interviewed by FOLIO:. In fact, one consultant sees magazines as secondary beneficiaries as desktop developers step up their quest to sell greater volume to the mass market. One of the main drawbacks of the magazine market, from the suppliers' viewpoint, is its size. Although sources agree the market is growing as technology improves, its potential as a profit center for desktop systems suppliers is peanuts compared to the massive corporate and low-end, retail-package markets.

Statistics support the view. The printing and publishing industry in 1987 had $129 billion in billings, according to the U.S. Government's recent U.S. Industrial Outlook. Magazines and periodicals accounted for only $8 billion to $11 billion of that total.

Another problem is that the technological needs of the magazine industry are the most demanding that desktop suppliers face. Sources agree that hardware and software manufacturers have a long way to go to produce magazine-strength solutions that, for example, can deal with multiple changes at deadlines, high-quality halftones and four-color reproduction--although partial solutions are available that offer considerable cost and time savings for specific magazine applications.

"From the pure desktop side, I don't see anyone making any moves to design their product specifically around magazines," contends Bill Solimeno, a consultant specializing in magazine and newspaper industries for the Seybold organization, one of the most highly respected firms tracking publishing technology.

"It doesn't make any sense if it's too small a market," he explains. "They would much rather design a product for the pure mass market out there--off the shelf, retail."

The bottom line for magazines is perhaps slower development of the high-end products that would bring the relatively low-cost desktop platform closer to the professional grade pre-press systems they are accustomed to. The upside: New products are priced for retail sale.

The showcase effect

That's not to say that magazines are to be completely left behind. Some firms, such as page layout software rivals Aldus Corp. and Quark Inc., see magazines having an enormous "showcase" appeal that will help them sell their products in their primary markets, thus spurring greater internal development.

Quark, for one, maintains that magazine publishing "is a market that we are firmly committed to serving," according to Alexander Hoag, director of marketing at Quark. He admits, however, "in some categories we have considerable development . . . that is necessary."

If Quark has "to make a choice between the casual, versus professional, market, it is our goal to serve the professional market," Hoag claims. QuarkXPress, and Macintosh, are the key components for a powerful design/layout workstation, Scitex' Visionary system, growing in popularity among magazines. However, with a hefty price of about $35,000 to $50,000 per station, including peripherals, Visionary isn't generally considered a typical "desktop" product.

QuarkXPress is used by magazines such as MacWeek and Aviation Week & Space Technology for supplements, and Smart, among others. New York City's popular satire magazine, Spy, also is using it.

QuarkXPress generally gets high marks for its ability to control type to a 200th of an em space. However, it has the disadvantage of being available only for the Macintosh. In order to run in the MS-DOS environment, says Hoag, QuarkXPress functions would need to be cut back--not the direction in which magazines are looking. Quark is assessing other platforms, including IBM's OS/2, he notes.

Aldus, maker of the popular page make-up program PageMaker, used by a number of magazines, has gone so far as to restructure its organization to create a group that focuses on products for the professional marketplace, including magazines. "We don't have a product yet [for magazines], but I see light at the end of the tunnel," says Aldus' manager of new business opportunities, Peggy Thompson. She declined to speculate when a magazine-strength program would be available, but acknowledged, "not imminently."

PageMaker doesn't yet have all the functions and flexibility needed to produce high quality magazines, Thompson admits. Dealing with magazine deadlines is one of the most difficult challenges to overcome, she says.

"Everything is sort of tentative until the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle goes in place. If the last piece you are holding doesn't fit the hole, you have to scoot things around. Most desktop products don't have that capability.

"We've not wanted to step out of the mainstream, and we've not been interested in doing any custom versions that would be just for magazines," adds Thompson. "We've been working hard in the past year to introduce some of the capabilities that the magazines need into the mainstream product, so everybody can have it."