By Chuck Gehman
One would expect that by the year 2001, all file deliveries between creators and their service providers (i.e., printers and prepress shops) would be taking place over digital networks. However, this is far from true today. In fact, the most popular job delivery method continues to be removable media, with recordable CDs (CDRs) being the most popular format for large job deliveries. However, use of the Internet for job delivery has never been more popular than it is today, and is positioned to play an increasingly important role in our workflows.
In the recent Trendwatch report (November 2000), entitled “Printers and the Internet: Rethinking Marketplace Realities for 2001 and Beyond”, it is noted that of the printing companies surveyed, 67% of the respondents use email to receive jobs. Only 40% of those same surveyed printers have FTP sites to download or upload files with their customers. Similarly, only 35% of those companies use email to send/receive proofs.
In analyzing these numbers, one must pose two questions: first, why is email used so much? Second, why do seemingly so few printing companies take advantage of more advanced digital file transfer methodologies? We’ll try to answer these questions and make some predictions for what we’ll see in 2001.
Using Email to send files
Why do people use email to send files? The simplest answer is that email has become ubiquitous and simple. Just about everyone has email and knows how to use it. Creators see the computer as a tool to do their job. They are very well-versed in the use of their content creation programs (like Quark or Adobe InDesign, and creative programs like Adobe Illustrator and/or Photoshop.) But they don’t want to learn how to use a complicated system to accomplish job deliveries. And why should they? It’s a simple drag-and-drop activity to copy files to a removable media disk, or, for that matter, to burn a CDR these days.
Another extremely important reason why email is popular for file transfers is that it’s free. Having access to email has become part of everyone’s work life: it’s like having a phone on your desk. Why would you want to spend money to subscribe to a file transfer service when you can just send files via email attachments for free?
One good reason is that email isn’t a great way to send files. Most email systems restrict the size of attachments that can be sent and/or received. This greatly limits the functionality of email as a job delivery mechanism. A typical corporate email system limits attachments to 2mb; so do the popular “free” email systems like Microsoft’s Hotmail or Yahoo. This size limit typically applies to your entire inbox, so as soon as the total size of your messages exceeds this limit, you can’t receive any more messages. Another important reason why email transfers are problematic is that encoding of attachments can go awry. Users of America Online (AOL), and users sending files from PC to MAC and vice-versa are the most likely to experience these types of problems.
A second, perhaps more important, reason why email falls short is that email affords no workflow integration. Your email message arrives in an inbox in an email program, and then needs to be manually opened and the attached contents moved to a hard drive or server volume so that they can go into production.
So, email file transfers are working today for those last minute text changes, small graphics and forgotten fonts. But for sending entire job deliveries, it will never be the ideal method.
FTP Emerging
FTP, the Internet standard File Transfer Protocol, has really emerged this past year as the most popular method for graphic arts job delivery. Transfers of virtually unlimited size can be accomplished. There are many FTP programs that are easy to use available for virtually any computer platform (i.e., Macintosh, PC/Windows and Unix.) Most FTP client programs today support error checking and resumption of transmission when Internet connections have problems with dropped lines (like over modems) or congestion over network backbones.
There are two big obstacles to FTP use today. First, it’s the complexity. As simple as these client programs have become, they still don’t quite make transfers a drag-and-drop operation, in most cases. You still have to remember user names and passwords, and navigate a file system to take advantage of FTP.
Setting up an FTP server (which is the receiving end of the FTP connection) is more complicated than installing an FTP client. One big obstacle to having an FTP server on your premises is that you need to have a dedicated Internet connection. This means either a DSL line or a T-1 line. Without the dedicated connection, customers won’t be able to access the FTP site.
Perhaps the biggest reason for FTP’s limited acceptance is the technical and administrative overhead that puts a burden on the staff of the graphic arts service provider. Someone has to configure and support an FTP server. In order to be particularly useful, each of your customers should have their own User ID and Password. They should only be able to see their own files that they’ve sent you, and files that you’ve put on the FTP server for them to download. You’ll want to consider the folder structure carefully, so you can track the uploads and versions that your customers send. You need to worry about the security of that server, both so hackers don’t get your customers’ sensitive information, and so other customers don’t see their competitor’s files on your servers. And along the same lines, your staff is going to have to provide hand holding support over the phone to your customers as they try to send files to you.
But because FTP is essentially as free as email (after you’ve justified the dedicated Internet connection, hardware investment and support overhead) it’s a compelling way of doing job deliveries with customers. Basically, the more you use it, the less it costs, and because with a little tech skill you can move file deliveries from the FTP server right into your workflow, you can achieve integration and automation that other solutions might not be able to provide. Expect to see FTP become easier to do, and significantly more popular in 2001 than it is today.
Advanced Methods?
Over the last four years, WAM!NET has established a presence in the high end of the graphic arts market with their Direct service (also known as the “purple box”.) This service is easy to use: job deliveries take place over a private network: you drag-and-drop into a folder, and off goes your job. But this ease of use comes at a price that is often too high for most printing companies and creators to pay, because in addition to a monthly service fee, senders pay by the megabyte. And although WAM!NET has established an Internet Gateway, this is a solution that would, for the most part, only appeal to “purple box” customers, in allowing their business partners to send them files via the Internet.
The former 4-Sight ISDN solutions are still used by a large number of companies around the world (WAM!NET purchased the company in 1998.) However, ISDN solutions are complicated and expensive to use (paying by the minute for file transfers), and, in the face of ubiquitous broadband Internet access in the United States, they’ve become antiquated by today’s standards.
Another entrant, the VIO file transfer service, is a wonderful example of using advanced Internet technologies to address a graphic arts market need. The user interface employed by VIO, and their sophisticated use of a database for tracking and user authentication, are to be commended. However, VIO also charges by the megabyte for job deliveries, and, like WAM!NET, is primarily a private network service with an Internet gateway. The cost and complexity, as well as a small installed base, have limited it’s adoption.
The most recently announced service in the job delivery arena is FileFlow. The company has recently launched their FastSend application as an Internet browser-based, easy to use service. Incorporating compression and encryption, the service provides a secure, method for job deliveries over the Internet. As with the other services mentioned, FileFlow charges a per megabyte fee for job deliveries. But it’s less expensive than the above-mentioned private network services and works over the ubiquitous Internet. However, it remains to be seen whether users will pay by the megabyte for sending files over the Internet, when FTP can be used for virtually no on-going or per use charges.
Predictions for 2001
With broadband Internet access (i.e., DSL, Cable System-based Internet access and cheap T-1 lines) becoming available in more and more areas of the United States, the Internet will become the de-facto method for job deliveries sooner rather than later. Although the Trendwatch report mentioned above indicates that not all companies in the graphic arts industry take advantage of email or FTP, the same report states that an additional 15% of companies surveyed plan to add those capabilities.
In many areas today, even though DSL isn’t available (it will begin to be available in more and more locations nationwide as 2001 progresses), inexpensive high performance T-1 lines to the Internet are affordable even for small graphic arts firms, with prices reaching below $500 per month for these services. Business-class DSL (Symetrical DSL – same upload and download speeds) services will fall to about $100.00 per month over the next year.
This affordable Internet access will become a requirement for companies serving the graphic arts market, and will make job delivery via digital networks become a standard application both for creatives and service providers.
The area of workflow integration via the Internet has become a key focus for both graphic arts Internet companies, such as application service providers (ASPs), as well as the traditional suppliers. Companies like Agfa and CreoScitex have debuted significant tools (like Agfa’s Apogee Create and Creo’s Prinergy InSite) which as much as require a robust Internet connection to be used effectively. This trend will increase as 2001 rolls on, with many new tools and applications emerging.
Because of this, we’ll see the job delivery component move from being a standalone application to one that is incorporated into our production tools and systems. This will both remove the burden of having to learn how to use an additional application to send files, and will bring the creator and the service provider into a much more effective, network-based, collaborative workflow. Instead of the typical “one big job release” as we see today, creatives and their printers will instead take advantage of the interactive capabilities of the network and software, making time work for them by releasing components of jobs into production as they are ready.
Standards will play an increasingly important role. The CIP4 consortium’s JDF initiative, as well as the various industry XML projects like PrintTalk and printCafe’s PCX, will be important tools in creating links between systems both for content (the actual job deliveries) and for the information about those jobs that will go into our management systems and databases.
2001 promises to be an exciting time for job delivery, and for our industry in general!
No comments:
Post a Comment