Plenty startups want to kill Adobe, but do they have what it takes to do it?
There is significant investment activity in startups aiming to challenge Adobe, spurred by the failed acquisition of Figma. However, the notion of directly replacing Adobe with a Figma-like product seems improbable. Even Canva, with a larger user base than Adobe, has not managed to match Adobe’s revenues or disrupt its position in the enterprise market. While companies like Figma have primarily focused on the UI/UX design segment, which is relatively small, Canva has strategically targeted the larger document and graphic design market which is the lion’s share of Adobe’s revenues. The key to success lies in understanding why these attempts are falling short and identifying what is needed to create a truly successful competitor to Adobe.
Adobe’s dominance stems from its proprietary PDF format, which it monopolized for 20 years before releasing it to the public domain. During this time, Adobe developed formidable enterprise tools to manage the entire creative workflow and document lifecycle. For any competitor to succeed, they must introduce a content format that offers the same distinct advantages as PDF. This format will dictate the tools that can effectively replace Adobe and other incumbent solutions. The widespread adoption of these tools will be driven by the utility and versatility of the format, echoing the scenario from three decades ago when Adobe introduced the PDF format.
PDF boasts two distinct advantages: pixel-perfect design and portability. Pixel-perfect design not only enables the creation of aesthetically superior documents compared to HTML but also facilitates a natural workflow where designers can freely move and position design elements on a canvas. In contrast, HTML, being a structured language, requires elements to be positioned in grids, making it challenging for non-coders to plan and execute designs. Even visual tools for designing HTML demand users to make complex positioning choices. Portability allows documents to be freely distributed as email attachments or web downloads as a single file. In contrast, HTML lacks portability; when Adobe converts designs to HTML, they must send multiple files—images, HTML, CSS, etc.—making it difficult for users to exchange such documents. Additionally, PDF suffers from a major disadvantage: limited interactivity and lack of embedded data analytics that has lead to the emergence or dedicated reporting technologies that’s address this need.
Storied Data introduces a disruptive technology featuring a proprietary pixel-perfect, portable HTML format that combines the strengths of PDF while extending its benefits to full interactivity and analytics. This innovation revolutionizes digital document creation and distribution, eliminating dependencies on servers and backend technologies. From presentations to interactive reports, dashboards, invoices, brochures, catalogs, newsletters, and more, our format empowers users to generate a wide range of documents effortlessly.
By aiming to disrupt Adobe’s PDF with a more enhanced format for digital documents, Storied Data inadvertently impacts costly Business Intelligence and web authoring tools. We elevate portability to new heights, offering full in-document data and analytics with extreme compression and zero server dependency. This not only reduces compute costs significantly but also expands the scope of documents that can be generated in a single format, thus introducing the concept of an uber authoring tool – Storied Data Designer.
Traditionally, creating diverse content required multiple tools, resulting in high system costs and knowledge barriers for different teams. With Storied Data, one tool can handle various tasks, from presentations to business intelligence dashboards, web pages to automated bank statement templates for mass distribution. This integration not only slashes system costs but also fosters collaboration among teams.
The future of document creation lies in the fusion of different content types into single documents—text, data, images, interactivity, and analytics seamlessly integrated. Furthermore, the dynamic HTML format of our platform facilitates easy data transport and integration between systems. A versatile single format enables information and data to flow effortlessly across any medium, a key factor behind the faster growth of PDF compared to HTML despite their simultaneous inception. The establishment of this new format and document authoring paradigm can disrupt even Microsoft Office.
To Learn more about how to create interactive bank statements, contact us.
Dr. Rado