I remember being very confused about what an OEM was when I first came in contact with the term in - unfortunately - the 1990s. If you are too, it’s actually quite simple: OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer, and it’s commonly used to refer to technology made by another company than the one you are buying from. There are many ways in which this can happen, but imagine buying a scanner or digital camera: you may get software that comes with it, that wasn’t made by the scanner or camera manufacturer, but someone else. You got an OEM product.

Why would you do that?

Why would any company do that? Isn’t it a better idea to make everything yourself? So you have full control over what the software (or hardware) does? Sometimes it is, and for some companies it becomes a real philosophy, sometimes called the “Not Invented Here” syndrome. Being able to control every part of the product does come with advantages, and sometimes allows you to create a smoother product or better user experience: think about what Apple does in its ecosystem. But the “Not Invented Here” syndrome isn’t called a syndrome by coincidence - it can be really harmful as well.

You need an expert

Let’s look at what callas does as an example. The company has built close to 30 years of experience with PDF, and quality control, standardization, automation… in that universe. It’s what it does. It’s the only thing it does. It's in its DNA.

Now imagine that you have a company that develops a product that requires implementing PDF-based functionality. How do you go about that? You could, of course, build the skillset to support PDF from scratch. This will require smart developers who invest a significant amount of time in figuring out the PDF standard document (good news, it’s only about 1000 pages these days) and who implement the functionality you need.

Nobody says this is impossible. In fact, it’s what callas did obviously. Except that they had 30 years to perfect their code, implement all the little quirks in the standard, and add support for how people create PDF files that deviate from the standard (What? All PDF files are not perfect? 😱). Oh, and add code for underlying technologies such as image handling, font support, color management issues…

Core business

Developing features like this is measured in developer years. How many years would a single competent developer (no, not an AI) need to implement support for a feature? And a small additional point that is often forgotten: no, having ten developers doesn’t cut the required time by a factor of ten. It does help to have a bigger team - obviously - but it’s far from linear.

So the essential question - and the reason OEM technology exists - comes down to this: is a feature core, and what is the opportunity cost of implementing it yourself versus OEM’ing it from someone else.

Opportunity cost?

If you decide you are going to spend three hours each week to learn Chinese - that time is lost for other endeavors. Perhaps you would like to be able to speak Chinese because you want to travel there, but you also want to learn how to write JavaScript because you’re eying a promotion at work that requires that skill. If your time is limited, and three hours a week is all you’ve got available as ‘extra’ time, the opportunity cost of learning Chinese is: no JavaScript and thus no promotion.

Yes, it’s a silly example, but it translates perfectly well in a business context. If your company has a workflow system used by printers, and you need to support PDF quality control along international standards such as the ISO PDF/X, or Ghent Workgroup standards, how you go about doing that is important. Developing the functionality yourself carries an opportunity cost - some of your development team (and your product management and support team - often overlooked investment!) is going to need several developer years to implement that. Or, using OEM technology (from callas, obviously), they would be able to spend that time on more core functionality.

What is the cost?

The real time required to support certain PDF features is often underestimated. In a new OEM whitepaper that will be soon available to download on the (brand-new) callas OEM website at oem.callassoftware.com, I look at that in more detail and make some basic guesses. In this blog, suffice it to say that even something relatively basic, such as supporting the latest Ghent Workgroup 2022 specifications, requires a total effort that easily runs around 10 to 15 developer years.

Sneak peek of the OEM white paper: Return on investment using callas technology for PDF processing, rather than building PDF processing technology from scratch.

If you’d like to take a look at this new OEM white paper in advance, just send us an email and we’ll be happy to provide you with early access. Perhaps you’ll think my estimates are pessimistic or self-serving (I do work for callas and we do offer OEM technology after all), but I’ll gladly discuss them with you and I don’t think they are. Having worked at the two top PDF preflight companies, and being the Executive Officer of the Ghent Workgroup, where I’ve spent 25 years of my life, I think my respect for how tricky good PDF support is is well-founded.

Why haven’t I heard of callas OEM technology before?

Good question. You may have worked with it in fact. There’s technology integrated in Adobe Acrobat Pro (the Preflight plug-in) and Foxit Editor. There’s technology integrated into workflow systems such as Kodak Prinergy, and Xerox FreeFlow. You can find it in MIS systems such as Dataline from MultiPress. callas currently has over 75 active OEM partners, but in many cases those integrations fly largely under the radar.

Examples for callas OEM partners

Sometimes that is because an OEM partner wants to keep it that way. Why give away how you’re beating the competition after all, right? But I think some of it is because callas is a company of PDF experts who are very proud of what they create, but don’t feel the need to brag about it.

But now you know about it. So have a look at the new callas OEM website. Join the callas pdfForum and engage in the discussions. Or just reach out to the OEM team at callas to have a discussion.

Remember the opportunity cost. We’ve already paid it for you, so you don’t have to.