mauricegold

Just imagine if you were working in a large printing company, to whom clients would send some advertising-work for editing and finishing and finally printing. Now imagine that these clients could use just about any version of any software they saw fit and those which were unfit (Microsoft Publisher.. I'm looking at you). So in a former life, I'm responsible as Pre-press IT manager for ensuring a pro-active response to any, usually large clients like high-street supermarket chains (with deep pockets), at any time, with any software, with any fonts (all necessarily legally licensed if not saved as PDF subset). So there was always a need for liaison, and an ongoing need for a pro-active ability to have software that could open the clients' files, and have the correct font-versions, so as not to have kerning and layout issues. I would have running battles with the Financial Department in order to get Quark upgrades. I would request 20, but he would only allow 10, usually. So there would be piecemeal disparities in software versions, making future upgrades more tricky, with only part of the Pre-press able to do certain tasks. I would also request that we get a copy or 2 of say, InDesign for evaluation and training, because, sure as hell, a client would be sending us InDesign files, and we had better be ready and able to work with them. Font licences, when clients don't embed them. So there is a necessity to have a range of software available, and staff trained to use it, when the clients could use anything, and could be able to fund new hardware platforms better than your own accounts department gave a damn about. In the UK, Quark prices were pound for dollar plus, and we hated them with a vengeance. Plus we needed Quark add-ons, which were also version-dependent and expensive. Needless to say, the Accounts department seemed to think it was just my department's or just my, wish-lists to justify retaining them, and the Accounts Department and the company  would be much better off without Pre-press. They just lived in a bubble, using numbers with pound-signs in the front, and that was their existence. On-topic, this is still a nightmare. Big printing houses with big clients need to be au fait with all available software: the Adobe Suite, Quark Xpress, and just about anything and everything. If you can liaise with your client ahead of time to 'suggest' that they should use software you 'strongly recommend' that is fine. 

Apple may yet rue the day it started dealing with Indonesia. While China has problems, there are people there who understand that learning about the design, creation, and bolting together of consumer-goods for mainly Western consumption will augur well for them in the future. Indonesia on the other hand is run by a Byzantine, ignorant, corrupt, Islamist-friendly regime with a get-rich-quick-for-no-effort mentality, an uneducated, superstitious workforce which excuses itself 5 times a day for prayer, has holidays for at least 3 religions (Muslim, Hindu, Christian), and seems not to give a damn about quality, customer-service, health or much else. I have lived in Bali for over a decade now, so I can speak with a modicum of knowledge. Apple beware. You know not what you're getting into.