The story of PostScript is a neat illustration of the process of digital transformation because it
encapsulates all of the ingredients into a single narrative: slow-moving incumbents, nimble startups, and an underlying technology landscape that improved gradually, eventually emerging as a platform for reinvention. Most important of all, the story of PostScript illustrates how an entire industry can shift to a new technology quickly when all of the pieces are aligned.
The key components of the PostScript system constitute the foundations of digital change for any industry and include:
> Processing power: Rendering PostScript files required an immense amount of processing power, far more than most desktop computers had at the time. The solution was to put a much more
powerful processor in the printer, which meant that laser printers initially cost much more than the computer.
> Connectivity: Apple’s LaserWriter debuted at a nosebleed price of $7,000. The only way to make the LaserWriter affordable to small design agencies was to include some means for many
computers to connect to a single printer. So Jobs also bundled AppleTalk, which was Apple’s proprietary means of connecting multiple computers in one office to the printer. That way the cost of the printer could be amortized across several different computers and thereby increase the value of the investment. By 1987, just two years after the launch of the LaserWriter,
AppleTalk was the most widely deployed networking technology in the world, with more than 100,000 installations. For many personal computer users, AppleTalk was the first time they connected any device to a digital network.
> Device-independent software systems: PostScript was an open system in three parts: a page- description language, a collection of fonts, and an interpreter that could be licensed by
manufacturers of printers. Previously, image-setting and typesetting machinery were proprietary, which meant that to produce print-ready artwork, the entire system had to be purchased from one single vendor. A PostScript file, however, was “device independent,” which meant that a design could be created on one computer, modified on another, and printed on a third from an entirely different manufacturer, as long as they were all PostScript compatible.
This novel combination of hardware and software spawned an entire industry, from tools for designing and managing fonts to clip art collections, image-editing software, and new printing devices in a range of resolutions and price points.
> Software optimized for workflow: The first desktop publishing program, PageMaker, was the best example of this new industry. PageMaker gave designers unprecedented ability to lay out pages, and it included many features that we take for granted today: drag-and-drop placement of images and type elements, tools for drawing shapes and for manipulating type, a way to import images from other software programs and scans. Pages designed in PageMaker could be printed
accurately on laser printers via PostScript. The combination of Aldus PageMaker, Adobe
PostScript, and the Apple LaserWriter very quickly established Apple computers as the
preferred work environment for graphic designers and art directors, a market position that the company has never relinquished.
> Network effects: AppleTalk linked computers together within a single office, but PostScript benefitted from a second kind of network effect. Companies that provided services to design firms and creative agencies needed to have compatible equipment. Because fonts are
copyrighted and trademarked intellectual property, designers were not permitted to send the font along with the final artwork to the image-setting shop. Instead they would send the PostScript file, which contained a software description of the rendered text treatment but not the font software itself. This meant that, soon, every law-abiding image-processing shop and every design firm was obliged to purchase PostScript-compatible equipment in order to do business with its customers.
It had taken a decade to get all of the foundation elements in place at the right price: powerful processors, networking technology, advances in laser printing, and specialized software. Once these pieces were in place, the entire design industry rapidly converged on PostScript as the standard, and the hardware manufacturers soon followed. By 1987 more than 400 computer programs using
PostScript had been created for Apple and IBM computers, and the standard was soon adopted by Microsoft as well as computer manufacturers Digital, Wang, and even rival laser print manufacturer Hewlett-Packard.
The impact on the traditional typesetting business was devastating—and surprisingly fast. In its heyday in 1900 there were 180 typesetting shops in Manhattan. By the end of the 1990s, just fifteen years after the debut of desktop publishing, most of these shops were gone for good. In 1998, the Typographers Association of New York held its last meeting to celebrate the end of an eighty-seven- year legacy.
Digitization of typesetting occurred just at the moment before it was common to network personal computers in office settings. Later, as the computers were networked and then connected to the Web and finally morphed into smartphones, the entire process of typesetting, pre-production, design, creation, publishing, and distribution of print was vaporized.
It took a century to create the modern printing industry and only a decade to wipe it out completely.
From its beginning in Mainz in the 1450s, printing had always been a trailblazing technology: it was the first mechanized industry, the first mass medium, the first pure information product, the first mass- manufactured product. And in the end it was the first casualty of the digital media trend.
Today this story seems a little quaint in an age when every teenager has a smartphone a thousand times more powerful than the legendary PCs in the dawn of desktop publishing. That’s exactly the point. The foundation technology never ceases to improve. On my smartphone today I have more than 100 apps, including twenty-two related to editing images, creating graphics and posters, using type design and typesetting. I can do everything on my phone from shooting a photo to writing an article, from designing the layout to creating the graphics, and publishing the final product to my blog or any other site. This content is never produced as a hard copy. It exists purely in digital form.
LINOTYPE’S EVOLUTIONARY LEAP
The story of the mass extinction of the typesetting industry also includes an example of how one
traditional business made the evolutionary leap necessary to transition successfully into digital media.
The Mergenthaler Linotype Company managed to survive by responding quickly and embracing digital dynamics, by vaporizing its legacy machine-age business into pure software.
The linotype machine was a classical mechanical system invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1883.
It consisted of a proprietary keyboard that required a specially trained typist to key in sentences, which were rendered into metal strips by the linotype machine. Without linotype it would have been impossible to set all of the pages of the newspaper in a single afternoon, and it was rapidly adopted by nearly every newspaper in the world. In fact, the firm dominated the typesetting industry for 100 years. By the late 1970s, the mechanical linotype machine was surpassed by newer photocomposing technologies and offset lithography. The company faced obsolescence.
But Linotype made a bold and visionary move that would ensure its survival while its peers
perished: it migrated one of its core proprietary business assets to a digital format. This turned out to be an epic pivot. Like most companies in the typesetting trade, Linotype owned the copyright to
several popular typefaces. The company was courted by Adobe because PostScript relied heavily on the availability of familiar fonts for its success. A major turning point for both companies was
reached when Linotype agreed to license thirty-five of its most popular fonts to Adobe to include in the PostScript system.
By migrating to software licensing and later jettisoning its hardware business entirely, the Mergenthaler Linotype Company managed to survive the decline of the traditional print industry.
Today the company lives on as a provider of font software.
ằ THE RISE OF THE ACTIVATED AUDIENCE
The most revolutionary aspect of the story of desktop publishing is not about
computers or other technology. It’s about the people who use the technology. The proprietary systems of the mechanical era required trained specialists to operate the equipment. By wresting creative control from the hands of the closed-system shops and placing it in the hands of his customers, Jobs created—unwittingly perhaps—a nascent community that would increasingly gather momentum to become the defining force in the digital landscape: the activated audience.
Digital technology put the tools in our hands, in our computers, in our phones, and immediately this access to desktop publishing software yielded a profusion of work by amateurs. These were perfectly horrid compositions by people who had no design talent whatsoever: garish birthday announcements with ugly clip art, unreadable yard sale signs, clumsy attempts at personal newsletters. Jokes about unsightly desktop publishing disasters abounded. It was easy to laugh about these ham-fisted efforts.
But those who dismissed these amateurish attempts to master embryonic software
programs missed a much larger and subtler trend towards activation, in which
audiences ceased being passive consumers and began to engage meaningfully in the process of production. Admittedly, their first efforts were often cartoonishly bad, but many of these non-professionals ultimately did manage to master the skills. Over time the software was improved, and better templates and easy wizards were developed that provided guardrails to minimize aesthetic clumsiness. After that it was only a matter of time before the expert masters of the previous era became an endangered species.
The emergence of the activated audience is a new phenomenon that emerged with the advent of the personal computer. At first, it was just a bunch of computer geeks who were easy to overlook. Now, the activated audience—and its cousin, the activated consumer—has become a force that commands the attention of marketing executives in every industry. This group’s habits, expectations, and always-on connectivity give it unprecedented power to shape trends, influence product development, and force the hand of major consumer product companies on matters that were once dictated by management, such as pricing, access, and even product design.
Consumers now expect to participate meaningfully whenever they wish, to decide how and when to consume, and to exert themselves in shaping their environment, including the political landscape. Back in the 1980s it was hard to envision this situation.
Today, there’s really no excuse for companies that don’t see what is coming next.
ASK YOURSELF
> Does the story of the printing industry present a parallel to circumstances in your industry? How might your business get vaporized?
> Does any part of your business process consist of information embedded in a physical object, like the melted-lead type used in the printing business?
> How is value controlled in your industry? Is there one particular machine or system that everyone relies upon? Can this machine be replaced by software? If not, can the upstream or downstream business processes be converted to software?
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