We have tons of 20% solutions -- they are not any good for professional printing and graphics work
Yes, that's the real problem.
None of the OSS offerings is really anywhere close to the equivalent CS tool yet: not Inkscape, not the GIMP, not Scribus.
Quark and Corel should have the pedigree, but last time I had this conversation I looked up the latest features in Corel's graphics software, and it's basically a second-tier player these days. I've never used Quark, but the picture painted by others looks similar.
The thing that puzzles me is why no-one has yet come up with a credible competitor to CS (or, similarly, to MS Office). Two of the most successful software companies on the planet make a very significant chunk of their profits on these product lines, and they are certainly open to disruption by competition based on usability and/or quality/reliability as well as functionality and workflow. Of course there's a substantial barrier to entry, but it's not that unassailable in software terms.
There are also network effects at play - your co-workers create .psd files, and your printing company takes .psd files, so you use Photoshop. There is also ample training material, frequent conferences, etc.
That was Corel's problem - not matter how good a tool they made, printers either could not open the files, or were scared off by bad experiences with previous versions.
Google docs has only succeed because "close enough" formatting was good enough for business docs and spreadsheets. Not so in graphic design.
Actually, Google Docs has not succeeded. You and I may used, but last time I checked it had something like a 1% share of the "office suite" (i.e if you include desktop Office et al).
Yes, that's the real problem.
None of the OSS offerings is really anywhere close to the equivalent CS tool yet: not Inkscape, not the GIMP, not Scribus.
Quark and Corel should have the pedigree, but last time I had this conversation I looked up the latest features in Corel's graphics software, and it's basically a second-tier player these days. I've never used Quark, but the picture painted by others looks similar.
The thing that puzzles me is why no-one has yet come up with a credible competitor to CS (or, similarly, to MS Office). Two of the most successful software companies on the planet make a very significant chunk of their profits on these product lines, and they are certainly open to disruption by competition based on usability and/or quality/reliability as well as functionality and workflow. Of course there's a substantial barrier to entry, but it's not that unassailable in software terms.