Wasn't Ascender started by refugees or defectors from Monotype? What's the story behind the story here?

Ascender was formed before Agfa sold Monotype Imaging. Perhaps the Ascender founders were trying to avoid visits to Belgium. :-)

Arial + Comic Sans Rebus FTW!!!

I have no immediate plans to cash out.
So the monopoly will have to wait.

And here I thought someone was trying to identify Kabel.

LOL.

I'd sooner have guessed (Bhikkhu Pesala's) Kabala in that case.

Buy your Comic Sans 2010 now from Monotype Imaging!

Will there still be April fools jokes?

So every designer or foundry with Ascender contracts will be now a part of the big Monotype univers.

Guess that's the risk of going with the Times.

Inertia is an easy course of action.
However, I would imagine that most contracts have cancellation clauses.
Or may be renegotiated.

Monotype House

Uhm…
http://typophile.com/node/87262

I'm curious, what do formerly-Bitstream's people in Noida, India do exactly?

hhp

The "If you can't beat them, buy them out" policy which has been so successful with the banking industry and airline industry seems to be also working quite well to keep the type industry equally healthy.

Looks to me like we now have three categories of foundries: 1. the non-designer owned foundries—now only one; 2. The foundries associated with primarily non-type companies—Adobe, Microsoft; 3. Designer-owned foundries.

Pretty soon, my mortgage, my bank, my airline, and my type will all belong to the same company :-/

>Pretty soon, my mortgage, my bank, my airline, and my type will all belong to the same company :-/

The United States Federal Government? Don't forget your auto-maker.

Nope. MicroAppleSoft.

Nope, "The 1% of the 1%"

Si,

The Chinese Government is far more likely than the U.S. Gov ;-)

After giving this a lot of thought, I think the only way to move forward is for type designers to unionize. The problem will be getting all the dead type designers to join. I think the Mormons may have worked out a solution for that but I'm not entirely sure.

Comrades, are you with me? ;-)

You remember TyD, right?

hhp

Well, at least the impending merger puts to rest the question of "Who's your Daddy?"

So $50 million for Bitstream, really MyFonts. Given the multiples that these sales usually work on, that means MyFonts is generating around $13 million a year. The real question, is who is going to buy this Monotype/Agfa/Linotype/ITC/Ascender/Bitstream amalgamation?

It is all venture capital so I can't imagine it will stay in current hands for long. They are interested in making money, not licensing type.

Si, Perhaps just a coop would be better. We make an online setup like MyFonts and each contribute a fair and reasonable percentage for operating cost.

@James,
Donald Trump :-)

The real question, is who is going to buy this Monotype/Agfa/Linotype/ITC/Ascender/Bitstream amalgamation?

That’s an interesting question. Bill Gates does not seem interested in developing the type business that Corbis acquired when it bought Veer. Steve Jobs could have done a bang-up job, but he is out of the picture. I think it’s more likely to be a small purchase by a massive holding company that wants a small but steady stream of revenue that is relatively insulated from local economic shocks. But I’m not a business guy, so my guesses would just be the obvious mammoths like Bain or Berkshire, and they’re to big to bother.

Si, Perhaps just a coop would be better. We make an online setup like MyFonts and each contribute a fair and reasonable percentage for operating cost.

Something like Vllg, but without the focus on mammoth families and editorial faces, might be a good idea. But is there someone out there who really knows how to put that together? If most type folks were great at digital retail we wouldn’t have hooked up with MyFonts to begin with.

The folks who started MyFonts are out there, James.

The folks who started MyFonts are out there, James.

But have they expressed any interest in starting another online font store? When they cashed out did they contracts they signed prohibit them from even doing so?

I anxiously await to hear the presidential candidates weigh in on this topic.

The Texas Gov does not remember the question; The WackJob lady is too busy getting her face tightened; The GodFather guy is booking time on Maury; The Geezer has wax in his ears; The other guy is just waiting out the competition.

> The folks who started MyFonts are out there, James.

Chris,

the folks who started MyFonts are still at MyFonts, and I don’t think much will change in that respect :)

It’s already about 7-8 years ago that a couple of the original team members left the project and since then, MyFonts hired some new people, but practically all of the original team members are still with MyFonts. I joined the team some 9 months after the project’s inception and have been working for MyFonts for 11 years now — and I don’t intend to go anywhere.

(One person whom we do miss indeed, and owe a huge lot, is Charles Ying, then-Bitstream Chairman who came up with the MyFonts idea and nurtured the project from its early years. He passed away in 2010.)

Remember, when MyFonts started, there was much trouble in the air because of the fact that it was Bitstream who started the project. Back then, Bitstream was considered the “bad guys”: “the knockoff boys who almost killed the industry for bundling 900 fonts with Corel Draw and selling a 500-font-CD collection for $50”.

I try to judge people based on the quality of the work they do, not based on the labels they carry. When I was joining the MyFonts team in 2000, it was important to me that Bitstream showed its intentions to “clean up its licensing mess” — and they did. (2003 was the final round when they signed licensing agreements for some Linotype designs — which Bitstream still sold under different names, but the designs were finally licensed).

From what I’m hearing from the new owners, one of the main reasons why they paid $50 million for MyFonts was because they found our project to be successful, and I like to think that one of the key factors behind its success has always been the team (I think they mentioned that, too).

After 11 years now, I can say that it’s by far one of the best teams I’ve ever worked with, or heard that anyone’s worked with. The MyFonts people are dedicated, focused and show amazing work ethics (by my standards anyway). It’s also true that we’ve enjoyed great autonomy and freedom in running MyFonts.

I for myself cannot imagine “starting another online font store”. So far, MyFonts has been the place where I could see my best and sometimes craziest ideas come into existence. The spirit and chemistry among the team has been just mind-blowing (without exception, for 11 years — beat that!), and I expect this to continue the same way.

What’s important: Monotype says that they recognize the way the team operates as a key factor behind MyFonts’ success, so I’d be rather surprised if they decided to suddenly change things. Of course, we shall see how it goes — but I don’t really think the question would be any less open if anybody else acquired MyFonts (say, an investment bank or whatever).

In a sense, while I did recognize the fact that Bitstream was MyFonts’ owner, that fact never was of paramount importance. Had MyFonts been owned by Monotype or whomever else from the very beginning, I guess the same would have been true.

Economic theories say that monopolistic developments are not good for the market because they slow down innovation and make people lazy. Well — at least from what I’ve learned from working with the MyFonts people for 11 years is that those folks are anything but lazy or lacking innovation.

Dunwich Type writes:

> When [the folks who started MyFonts] cashed out

The folks to cash out would be Bitstream shareholders. Bitstream has been a publicly traded company for a long time now. If *you* had bought any shares, you’d be one of those to cash out, I guess. Not sure, however, whether the Bitstream shareholders are the ones whom Chris is referring to as “the folks who started MyFonts”. The MyFonts team consists primarily of employees of the company as well as consultants (such as myself). And most of us were in their early 20s when we started the project.

One thing is certain: consider that Monotype Imaging bought Linotype for $60M and MyFonts for $50M (a rather comparable amount). I still remember the times very vividly when we hit the first 1,000,000 purchases, or when MyFonts broke even financially. It’s amazing that within ten years, the humble work of not much more than a dozen people helped generate this value, and that I’ve had the privilege to be part of it almost from the very beginning.

So — let’s get back to work. As usual, there are many amazing things that we want to do!

(Incidentally — I do have quite a few good friends and colleagues within Linotype and Monotype, so actually I am glad that I’ll probably have more chances to talk to them and work with them. Monopolies aren’t very welcome but fierce competition can be as damaging.)

Best,
Adam

"Not sure, however, whether the Bitstream shareholders are the ones whom Chris is referring to as “the folks who started MyFonts”

Adam,
I was referring to the people who did the work as a labor of love hands on, not the investors. I have no problem with the much needed investors and greatly thank them but they were not the ones to whom I referred.

James writes:

> They are interested in making money, not licensing type.

Are these mutually exclusive things? So far, I’ve had the naivety to believe that the point... Oh, wait. Where’s that Google Web Fonts and open-source discussion again? ;)

It’s amazing that within ten years, the humble work of not much more than a dozen people helped generate this value

Well, and the work of the participating foundries, of course!

> Well, and the work of the participating foundries, of course!

Absolutely! This is why I wrote “*helped* generate this value”. The foundries did all the hard work anyway, and truly are the ones who generated the value. We’ve only provided a platform for typefaces to be discovered, enjoyed and licensed.

Chris,

> I was referring to the people who did the work as a labor of love hands on

Thank you, that’s what I thought you meant :) Well — in that case — those folks have been with MyFonts, and are with MyFonts. Different investors now. Same hands on!

They are not mutually exclusive things at all. I'm thinking about companies like Bertelsmann, Disney, Universal etc.

King of all media...

I think it's funny that every time something like this occurs, it's reported that all the people in the company acquired won't be going anywhere. Everything will stay exactly as it was.

Richard,

Actually, the press announcements in this case tell a different story. Monotype did not acquire Bitstream as a whole but the font business including MyFonts, along with some things like patents trademarks. Other parts of Bitstream's business (Bolt, Pageflex), remain in a separate company. I think it's useful to know who's joining Monotype and who will go to the other company (which will no longer be called Bitstream since AFAIK the Monotype acquisition included the rights for the Bitstream name, which of course makes sense since that name has been used extensively in the context of the Bitstream font library).

So for "all of Bitstream", not everything will stay exactly as it was, and I wasn't under the impression that it's been reported in a way that would suggest that it would.

Best,
Adam

"
Dear MyFonts:

Regarding to latest news about Monotype will be acquiring the font business of Bitstream. I can just hope that MyFonts' services will stay as fast as they are now.

Posted on November 11, 2011
MyFonts says:
It's all good. Monotype intends to keep the MyFonts team and our method of operating exactly as it is today.
"

Thanks for the clarification Adam. I didn't mean specifically this acquisition it was just meant to be an offhand observation. Companies are always concerned about alarming customers fearing changes to come. (If things are going fairly well, that is.)
But I did not make that clear. I did wrong, frankly. I went OT, in a fashion.

But my mistake did prompt you to clarify a bit, and that's a good thing, so thanks.

Yesterday, I had a type designer - who shall remain nameless, but is very much in the mainstream, not libré - tell me that he thought this new entity was truly a Monopoly with a capital M. (Not makin' it up just to be provocative. There seems to be some nervousness about this and what it means for font distribution, at least in the short run.)

Got thoughts?

I would be concerned if MyFonts were to stop passing on the email addresses of its customers to its suppliers.

It will be interesting to see if Myfonts web font licensing model can coexist with Monotype's.

>It will be interesting to see if Myfonts web font licensing model can coexist with Monotype's.

Well, Monotype does provide self-host options, but it's not surprising that they promote the service model. If Bitstream had ben able to invest in developing their own web font service then my guess is they'd have been promoting that option too.

Quiet day.

>Quiet day.

Well put #2. Or is FSI #2 now, and FBI #3? ;-)

I like quiet days. The last couple was pretty crazy for me. Little did I know what I signed up for when I took on the role of managing type designer and foundry relationships here at Monotype Imaging. :)

Like many others, I have the utmost respect for the MyFonts team and the dynamic font community they have built – and I echo Adam’s comments about looking forward to the opportunity to work together to grow and support that community, and to maintain and strengthen the MyFonts.com.

Adam: The foundries did all the hard work anyway, and truly are the ones who generated the value. We’ve only provided a platform for typefaces to be discovered, enjoyed and licensed.

So how much of that $50 million is going to be shared with the people who generated the value that Bitstream are now cashing in on?

@jh

"So how much of that $50 million is going to be shared with the people who generated the value that Bitstream are now cashing in on?"

Bravo, John. You're consistent, I have to hand that to you.

Yes, why weren't the type designers in for a piece?

Why do the credit card companies make more per download on a song than nearly all recording artists do?
(This is factual.)

Why doesn't the assembly line worker at an automobile plant get a percentage of the sale and subsequent sales of the car she worked on?
(Not bizarre. Just never done. Why not structure compensation that way?)

Because the system was and is set up another way, and it was never challenged.

BTW - I feel bad that Bill Davis - who I like, personally - is stuck with the job of delivering the post-acquisition blather. Yuck.

...the system was and is set up another way, and it was never challenged.

Wasn't it?

John,

Unfortunately, I’m not able to answer your specific question. However, I’ll try to help. First, let’s have a look at how companies work, in a somewhat simplified model:

1. You want to set up a company.
2. Usually, you need money to finance your operation. That’s called capital. You find capital: either you invest your savings (in which case you’re the owner, i.e. sole shareholder or stockholder), or you take up a credit at a regular bank (in which case you’re also owner but have a credit running that becomes part of your expenses — but we’ll get to that later), or you sell shares aka stocks of the company (then you have other shareholders/stockholders, i.e. co-owners).
3. You can offer the shares to an investment bank, in which case it becomes the shareholder or co-owner of your company. Or you can sell the shares to some selected individuals. Or you can offer them for public trading (so-called IPO).
4. You set up a business model. You have expenses and you have revenue. If you’re selling some vendors’ products, you typically offer the vendors a deal: a part of the revenue (your first expense) goes directly to the vendors.
5. The other part of the revenue (your commission) covers your other expenses: office rent, revenue taxes, reserves, investments, payroll for employees, consultants, payments to contracting companies and other “cost of operation”.
6. The revenue minus the expenses equals profit. You perhaps pay some taxes off the profit, and then you distribute the profit to the shareholders (i.e. owners) as a dividend.
7. As long as your company is a publicly traded company, anyone with some spare capital is free to buy the stocks from existing shareholders who are willing to sell them. At any time, employees, consultants or vendors can become shareholders as long as they buy the stock.
8. You continue to run your business as long as you decide to do so.
9. If you decide to stop running the business, you negotiate with your shareholders a potential sale of the shares, and negotiate with prospective buyers.
10. If the negotiations with both parties work out fine, the transaction happens: the buyer acquires the shares from the shareholders (i.e. owners), and becomes the new owner. The former owners i.e. shareholders receive a payment.

To sum it up, there are typically three groups (roles) of people who contribute value and receive money in exchange while a business is running:
a) Vendors contribute their goods and receive payments as part of the business deal outlined in item 4.
b) Employees and consultants contribute work, contracting companies contribute services, and they all receive payments as part of the item 5.
c) Owners i.e. shareholders contribute capital, and they receive payments as part of item 6, and — should if items 9 and 10 occur — as part of 10.

As I wrote above, the roles listed above can be interchangeable: vendors, employees, consultants or contracting companies are free to become co-owners or shareholders as long as they contribute capital. If they do so, they become recipients of the payments in items 6 and 10.

> So how much of that $50 million is going to be shared with the people
> who generated the value that Bitstream are now cashing in on?

If you’re a shareholder of Bitstream — which has been a company traded publicly in the U.S. (NASDAQ symbol "BITS") — I assume that there are appropriate channels where you can find it out. I’m not a shareholder of Bitstream and am not involved much in stocks trading in the U.S., so I cannot answer your specific question.

Some information about the acquisition can be found in the Bistream press release and the Monotype Imaging press release. Also, according to Google Finance, Bitstream currently has a market capitalization of approx. $57.7M. You may also find the SEC 8-K filing summary or the actual SEC filing materials (1 | 2) interesting.

But I hope I was able to clarify the issue a bit, and provide you with some pointers to where and how you can find more information! :)

Best,
Adam

Hey yo, I'd like to take this opportunity to give some well earned kudos to Monotype Img.. I own a successful company (it was two separate companies but I merge them into a single company, but still feels like two for me. First one I started in first year uni way back in '91) so I know a thing or two about survivability.

TYPE is up three bucks from their common share IPO - is that about right? And a healthy market cap to throw around town too. That's pretty good in today's environment - so ya kudos for building a solid day job!

So how much of that $50 million is going to be shared with the people who generated the value that Bitstream are now cashing in on?

Why would I expect a cut from my distributor when that business changes hand?

It's their business, not mine, which I still have.

It could also be said that Bitstream has generated a large part of my business's value, as a major distributor—and I don't intend to share any of its value with them.

However, IMO fonts are worth considerably more than three times annual revenue, which is a rather generic or default multiplier.
But you get what you can, and that goes for both parties involved in the deal.

Quiet and peaceful day too. What piece? What system? What's blather? ;)

So what major foundries are left after Bitstream's assimilation? All I can think of are Font Bureau, P22 and Berthold...

Thank goodness that is all you can think of.

@mjkerpan

There are over 300 type foundries in my bookmarks directory… A substantial percentage of those sell their own products. So… not all are major, but together they probably equal the new MT-entity.

Adam, I know how corporate capitalism works. As you may have noticed, Tiro tries to operate in a different way. I believe -- doubtless to my own financial detriment -- that the people who create value should share in the returns on that value to a proportionate degree, and that one shouldn't seek to profit from the labour, skill and creativity of another person except insofar as you add value to what is produced (a distribution system adds value, for instance, but is of its nature secondary to the production of the thing distributed). So when you acknowledge that 'the foundries did all the hard work anyway, and truly are the ones who generated the value', I'm bound to ask what share those value-generators get of the income from the transfer of ownership of that value. I know they probably won't get any, because Bitstream -- like most companies in the capitalist system, as you describe -- is set up in a way that rewards people who have had no direct hand in the creation of the value, but have only wagered on the ability of the people who have.

Meanwhile, here we plug along trying to make good things and sharing the profits among the people who contribute their labour, skills and creativity, 'cause that's how we roll.

> However, IMO fonts are worth considerably more than three times annual
> revenue, which is a rather generic or default multiplier.
> But you get what you can, and that goes for both parties involved in the deal.

Nick,

please note that according to the current NASDAQ stats, Bitstream’s current total market capitalization is some $57.7M. Total market capitalization means: the total price which the market participants would be willing to pay for all of Bitstream’s stocks. In recent times, the BITS stock price was on a slight declining course, with no major changes. Of course the “total market capitalization” is a bit of a fictitious value because if the stockholders offered all the shares for sale on the open market at the same time, that price would not be achieved. But given that the Monotype merger has not covered all of Bitstream (i.e. the Pageflex and Bolt businesses are being spun off), the $50M sum seems rather close to the stock value.

So — while I don’t really have any actual knowledge about this whatsoever — it seems to me that the price paid at the merger has simply been a fair reflection of the current market value, not necessarily based on the annual revenue multipliers. In that respect, I don’t see anything “sensational” (either way) happening.

Best,
Adam

MyFonts does not have exclusive access to the value font makers add to its business. And the value goes both ways. The value to MyFonts to me, as a font producer, is its excellent website and customer base. I signed an agreement with them where all the terms were spelled out, and I don't remember seeing anything in it about paying me some kind of bonus if they changed hands.

I love MyFonts and I just hope they can keep doing what they do so well.

@John: (a distribution system adds value, for instance, but is of its nature secondary to the production of the thing distributed)

It does way more; in the case of MyFonts, it has enabled a great many foundries to be founded and create fonts, which wouldn't have existed otherwise. MyFonts type tester, which shows OpenType features, has been a stimulus to the production and dissemination of OpenType-featured fonts; and if I am wrong about its primary agency, at least it is part of the economic micro-system which furthers that cause.

…the price paid at the merger has simply been a fair reflection of the current market value, not necessarily based on the annual revenue multipliers.

If that is the case, the market has been distorted by the relative size of the players here—in particular Monotype, which has a strong negotiating position due to the lack of other potential purchasers.

Surely a typeface that pulls in revenue over many years should be valued on that basis.

Fair points, Mark and Nick.

My point, Bill, is that what remains viable is the "Design", not the form of delivery or use.
I might add that Mozart sounds way better on a Klavier or Pianoforte than it does on a MIDI. Type is a whole nother thang, though. Type depends on the quality of rendering of whatever device used--a letterpress or an iPad. The "design" of the font is pretty much the same but the quality of presentation makes a huge difference. Which sucks worse, piss-poor pixel rendering or badly battered lead type bashed into crap paper and over inked?
The human act of performance of music with emotion and feeling is lost in a MIDI. I will take my 1956 Rubinstein recording of Chopin Etudes over any MIDI (or Yanni) playing of the same. ;-)

To continue the music analogy, just as some musical pieces translate better into new styles of playing (Bach, for example, sounds great whether played by period ensemble, contemporary orchestra, 70s synthesizers or even heavy metal guitar) than others, the same is true with type designs. Some designs work well in just about any sort of printing technology ever invented, while others are tied so closely to the technologies of their given era that they just plain don't work right anywhere else.

AFAICR, the MIDI standard does allow for various expressions. The NoteOn message, f.ex., is followed by a seven-bit code, 'velocity', which tells how hard the note was hit or how loud it's supposed to be. Can't remember atm if it's midi.org or midi.com for the MIDI Consortium.

Listening to a MIDI play music compared to listening to a good musician is like comparing an inflatable women doll to a real human version--it looks like a duck but you don't give a ...

Only on Typophile :)

@dez - Oh, I've pottered around with MIDI files enough to know that already. Remains, though, that they are canned expressions, not recordings. If you have a variety of synths or soundfonts, it is even possible to pick the instrument you think responds best to a particular expression. Heh, I've done that a few times with the software synth TiMidity – written scripts and config files to temporarily revoice existing MIDI files. That's the part I like about MIDI files: I'm not just a mindless consumer.

@WB - The place does have a life, after all.

@Té,

My wife is a fine musician and has other musicians around daily. The big difference is that you may be able to get a technical device to mimic a particular performance with some degree of accuracy. You cannot get that system to create a worthwhile performance of its own except by chance. Then comes ensemble performance where musicians respond to each other and make something spectacular happen as a result.

All of your points are known to me despite me not being a musician, but when one's far away from live performances, the canned stuff, including MIDI performances, will have to do.

All permitting, I'll be at a live do in about a month. I look forward to it, even though I'll be audience and nothing but. With the MIDI stuff I can at least pretend I'm a part of the performing group. Not that I expect anyone to understand that.

It seems they’re now investing in webfont deployment:
http://typecast.com/blog/typecast-joins-monotype
http://typecast.com/monotype-acquires-design-by-front

I had bookmarked Typecast to check it out for real, but hoping for a shortcut: how does it work, exactly? There seems to be way too much fluff to wade through on their site to get to the nitty-gritty.

hhp

I don't know how it works, but Typecast’s webfont utilization is a littl spotty on my machine: the linked page recomposed before my eyes as it loaded…

I think it's their Javascript.

Edit #1: I looked with two browsers: Firefox 16 and K-Meleon 1.6 (based on Firefox 3.5 or so). FF16 did not show any page flicker. K-Meleon did. IIRC, its Javascript engine is a lot slower than FF16's.

And now, what?
http://typophile.com/node/117974
http://typophile.com/node/117976