Given information that Pantone palletes will be removed from Adobe software libraries this March, and Pantone focusing on promoting their Pantone Connect extension subscription model, i was wondering if anyone heard anything about it regarding Corel software.
Bobby Henderson said:Whatever the terms may be I think Pantone, X-Rite and the higher ups who own those companies are making a really stupid mistake by letting those libraries be removed from Adobe's software.
I can envision the executives at Pantone convincing each other around a boardroom table that they are providing essential, critical, and irreplaceable technology. To the point where they think they have a monopoly on color.
Pantone has a good and unique business, but seeking predictable ongoing revenue through a curiously expensive subscription model is excessive. Perhaps they have too many staff to feed (100+ staff) and are frantically trying to justify keeping everyone.
I'm wondering if it would be considered a kind of anti-trust violation if Adobe introduced its own spot and process color libraries. They still haven't mentioned details of their work-around. A new color library system could be a possible work-around.
I'm betting revenue is way down. I haven't seen a new Pantone book in a manufacturing environment in years. I bet designers buy them but even those sales are down. Everyone designs from the screen, then bitches when it doesn't look right. I saw a trend of designers buying books with tear out tabs to give to the printer a while back.
Pantone was on a buying spree about a decade or so ago, buying palettes and color technology, so was Xrite. In my experiance none of these companies had good customer service. They would not be helpful and always steered me toward spending more money even when I didn't need to. They wanted to sell me 3 spectrophotometers when I was smart enough to have already spent a bit more on one that did all the required tasks and they knew it. The 485 page manual had 41 pages that really told you what you needed to create profiles and maintain your equipment they rest of the book gathers dust.
The reality of color management and palettes is that it's technical and intellectual, once you read it and understand it, it's a set it and let it work technology for everyone except the archival print manufacture, they need to update profiles with every lot of media. It's not a revenue generating powerhouse.
The problem is most users are not intellectual.
Bobby Henderson said:A new color library system could be a possible work-around.
Great point... and Adobe has the cash resources to do that. Literally start fresh.
Plus... they could even market Adobe-branded swatch books and color scanning equipment, to have a comprehensive in-house solution.
The Adobe Integrated Color Accuracy Systemᵀᴹ
OK, I just made that up.
If Adobe is irritated with Pantone? Adobe can bury them in 5 years - or at least cause huge damage.
I wonder kind of production costs are involved in making the spot and process color swatch books sold by Pantone (and others). Pantone recommends you replace the swatch books at least once a year. But when a package of Pantone Plus Series spot color swatch books (coated and uncoated) costs $150-$200 or more most people will keep them quite a bit longer. It would be interesting if Adobe could sell a similar product for considerably less money.
For a long time Pantone had a pretty stable list of spot colors. In recent years they've gotten into the habit of adding a few more colors each year, probably as another way to push people into updating their swatch books. My workplace has to have those things on hand. I'm jealously protective of mine. From time to time various people want to "borrow" those swatch books, be it a customer or a co-worker who works out in the fabrication shop or on one of our install/service trucks. Nope. They don't leave my desk.