Adobe, FedEx Kinko’s Pact Creates Firestorm —Michelson

In fact, the uproar has been deafening. This “business move insults industry loyalty” and “we felt terribly betrayed,” wrote the PIA/GATF, pointing to the negative feedback it received from its 12,000 member companies. The agreement “comes at the expense of many other printers...who have played such a pivotal role in establishing Adobe as the defacto standard among end users for reading documents and printing file submission,” chimed the NAPL and NAQP in a similar letter to Chizen. Even 81 percent of print buyers responding to a Print Buyers Online.com (PBO) quick poll were opposed. As PBO’s Suzanne Morgan points out in her blog on www.piworld.com, “I’m surprised that one or both companies didn’t do test marketing or focus groups to understand the possible impact on their customers and brands...They need to step up to the plate and engage their customers at this critical time.”