You've likely seen a diagram describing how a Web-based application works. In them, the Internet is always depicted as a cloud, often shown as a comic-like thought balloon. (see Figure 1.) That cloud represents the huge virtual network the Internet is-a network of almost countless servers, routers, and other hardware devices, without a fixed topology (very unlike, say, the network in your office) that data move through with no fixed route-a fact that doesn't matter much because the data ultimately emerges from the cloud at the proper address. Sounds nebulous (dare we say even cumulonimbus?) but it works, and a fluffy cloud is easier for us to wrap our brains around than the incomprehensible physical reality of the Net.
However, the Internet cloud of today, and of tomorrow, is really far more than a big network made up of innumerable computer servers and holding vast amounts of data. Says software industry commentator Phil Whainewright, an expert on the topic of software-as-a-service, "Once your software becomes a service in the cloud, it opens up the potential to link it with other services that are out there. For many vendors and users, this is still a barely dawning realization, but it is of fundamental importance. In many ways, the Internet cloud is one great global SOA (service oriented architecture)-still very rudimentary in many ways, but flexible enough to accommodate different levels of sophistication, and evolving fast."
Remember this concept of software-as-a-service. You will be hearing more of it, as well as talk of the concept of "Web. 3-0" and even more cloud metaphors to describe the future of the Internet and even computing in general-a future the printing industry will likely be as tied into as every other. Web-to-print (W2P), as we know it today, is just a first toe into the (evaporated) waters of "the cloud."
As Whainewright intimated, much of the software of the future will be run not on a desktop computer, within the physical confines of an office, but on the Internet. A few years ago, no one would have considered that Microsoft, monopolist titan of desktop operating systems and Office applications, would consider the likes of Google (purveyor of an ad-supported search engine) and Amazon (a bookstore for goodness sake!) as rivals. Today, the open source concept Google represents, with products like a free online spreadsheet application, is indeed Microsoft's biggest competitor. Plus Amazon has unveiled a suite of Web-only solutions for e-commerce, search, and infrastructure that cumulatively make up a Web-based operating system. Amazon Web Services, backed by a massive technological infrastructure stealthily built-up over the years, allows new Internet companies to run without having to buy any hardware (or Microsoft software) at all! This will undoubtedly power a new generation of Web applications. We can certainly assume some of them will power print e-commerce solutions in the future.
Web 3.0
All of this is part of the Web 30 notion. There is an unbelievable amount of chatter on this concept of numbering the evolution of the Web with software version-like numbers. A concrete definition of just what Web 1.0,2.0, and 30 actually mean has been bantered about on various blogs and posts ad nauseum. Generally, Web 1.0 is what they're retroactively calling the Web as it was introduced to the public in 1994, peppered with static Web pages and featuring, structurally, people talking to machines. Web 2.0 is where we are today (there is even a Web 2.0 conference). Defined by some as the "Semantic Web," it is essentially a vast application platform with people communicating with one another through machines-engendering the whole social networking phenomenon. The next iteration, Web 3-0, has been envisioned by many as a kind of massive universal computing grid that will replace desktop computers. A beautifully concise definition of Web 30 is offered by Nicholas Carr, former Harvard Business Review editor, and author of The Big Switch, a polemic on "the cloud." Carr posits that, "Web 3-0 involves the disintegration of digital data and software into modular components that, through the use of simple tools, can be reintegrated into new applications or functions on the fly by either machines or people."
This notion of "reintegrating data into new applications or functions on the fly" is an apt descriptor of some of the newest software in the W2P space. Gluon, Inc., a publishing industry software developer probably best known for its QuarkXPress Xtensions, offers a new product in the W2P space called Gluon HyperPublishing System (HPS), a database-driven publishing solution that lets users create customized documents online and dynamically change them on the fly. (See Figure 2.) With HPS, users create templates that are managed through a database and can be used to build, for example, an ad. And with very little effort, the content can be reworked into postcard, a poster, or even a Web banner, through a simple interface. The HyperPublishing System is an example of software-as-a-service (SaaS), a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over the Internet. This might sound familiar, and SaaS is indeed closely related to the ASP (application service provider) model that W2P solutions like Printable employ. David Taub, Managing Director, Customer Service for Gluon, believes this model is the future, and printers, like many other types of businesses, will have to embrace SaaS and become "integrated providers."
"If you pay attention to Apple and Microsoft," says Taub, "you will see that both are developing major OS upgrades in the 2009 to 2011 timeframe, and these will be centered around Web services." He adds, "When we look at what Google is doing, it's clear that online applications will soon become part of everyday life. People will want, and expect, to have a relationship with printers that go well beyond ordering from a static Web-based storefront."
Bringing design tools to users through a Web browser is part of several W2P applications and an important new component in W2P solutions. Tribal Sketch, a new Web-browser based design application from the development team at Lucid Dream Software, Inc., is another such product. Tribal Sketch runs in Flash Player so users can interface with the software using virtually any browser or OS. Look for more of these designing-in-the-cloud applications in the future.
While design tools are a great option to offer customers, of major importance to a printer's business is that these Web-based solutions integrate with existing MIS and accounting solutions. Without this integration, management of projects that come in via the storefront may actually cost a printer more to process in administrative time than a job coming in to the shop in a more traditional way, because customer service or planning people are taking order data from the storefront and re-keying it into their MIS solution-a none-too efficient process. Gluon's HPS can talk to MIS solutions and also sends critical production data, like trim and bleed information. Production integration is a key function of www.scrapbook.com, a W2P service that allows scrapbook afficianados to upload images and build scrapbooks through the Tribal Sketch software design interface. The service works in partnership with various printers, and per David Lewis, President of Lucid Dream, final PDF files are created automatically from the design solution and "book orders are delivered to a print partner using JDF and PrintTalk interface for automated production." The W2P offerings from HiFlex, like HiFlex Print Support, are built on top of that company's MIS solutions and are integrated with them to the core. Look for MIS integration to be a primary new offering even from solutions that have been on the market for some time.
Are Print Buyers Ready?
As to whether print buyers are really ready to do business via the Internet, our Magic 8-Ball says "all signs point to yes." A recent study entitled The Print E-Procurement Marketplace: 2007 Print Buyer Survey Results, conducted by ESDF (The Electronic Document Systems Foundation), Gartner, and George Mason University, found conclusively that e-procurement solutions offer tremendous benefits over traditional paper and email procurement processes. The study looked at print buyers of both large and small organizations and found that respondents cited savings up to 25% when using e-procurement solutions and 40% of the respondents said the ease of use of the solution they used exceeded their expectations.
Consumers in general are buying more products online according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Quarterly E-Commerce Sales report. (see Figure 3.) Recorded since 1999, this quarterly report measures estimated U.S. retail e-commerce sales as a percent of total quarterly retail sales. Barring seasonal fluctuations, this number has been on a consistent upward trend; people continue to buy more online. The 2007 USC-Annenberg Digital Future Project, the sixth in a series of studies measuring how online technology affects the lives of over 2,000 Internet users and non-users, reports that online purchasers rose to its highest level in the history of the study (51.1%). The study also shows that Internet users who go online during work hours spend 7.8 hours, an entire workday, online each week and 70% of users with Internet access at work say going online has improved their productivity. This, of course, is what W2P solutions seek to offer users of the technology.
So the future of computing is that it will likely happen more and more in "the cloud." As W2P solutions evolve and are adopted at a rate consistent with other forms of e-commerce, many aspects of the printing business, from ordering and fulfillment, to variable project manipulation, database management, and even design will happen using Webbased services out there in Internet Cloud-it will just be the way business is done.
[Author Affiliation]
Mie Shaffer, Director, Digital Printing tomen
PIA/GATF
412-259-1730
jshaffer@piagatf.org
www.gain.net
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