Technology
Why software platforms still need third-party developers
Max Dunn of Silicon Publishing argues that the strongest software platforms are the ones that keep real room for outside developers.
InDesign Server, Nucleus & Firefly Services — Silicon Publishing at Creative Devs Conf 2026
Video from siliconpublishing.
Generated from the canonical interview transcript and validated against source data by Guests on Air.
Why do third-party developer ecosystems matter for software platforms?
Third-party developer ecosystems matter because outside developers extend what a platform can do and give customers more reasons to choose it. Max Dunn of Silicon Publishing points to InDesign, which overtook Quark XPress partly because Adobe treated developers as true partners, and calls launching new services without them a missed opportunity.
Max Dunn has built Silicon Publishing on Adobe technology for more than two decades. At the 2026 Creative Developers Conference, Dunn used a talk on InDesign Server and Adobe Firefly Services to make a case that reaches well beyond publishing: software platforms grow strongest when the companies behind them treat outside developers as partners, not as an afterthought.
The argument comes from experience on both sides of that relationship. Dunn described years when Adobe flew third-party developers to San Jose and shared product road maps with them, and a later stretch when Silicon Publishing could not reach the very cloud APIs its own engineers had helped Adobe build. Both periods shaped how the company works today.
For anyone running a business that depends on another company's platform, the talk offers a practical lesson. Dependence on a single vendor is not automatically a weakness. The real question is whether the vendor keeps room for third parties, and whether the business has gone deep enough into the platform to be useful when that room opens again.
Key takeaways
- Third-party developers helped InDesign overtake Quark XPress, because Adobe treated them as true partners in the early years.
- Outside developers can lose access when a platform launches without them, even after helping to build the technology.
- Deep expertise in one platform keeps a small firm useful when the vendor reopens its doors to partners.
- Ecosystems grow only when more third parties join, so a lone partner should push for others to follow.
1. When Adobe treated developers like rock stars
Silicon Publishing has used InDesign Server, a headless version of Adobe InDesign, as the rendition engine behind its software for about 20 years. The firm uses it for database publishing, including automated production of cruise booklets for Royal Caribbean Cruises, and for white label online editors that round trip between InDesign and HTML5.
Dunn credits much of that growth to how Adobe once worked with outside developers. In the early years, when InDesign was competing against Quark XPress, Adobe supported third parties fully. Dunn recalled Adobe flying the team to San Jose in 2006 for three days of sessions where road maps were shared and developers met the CTO and CEO.
In Dunn's telling, that support did more than help one company. Third-party developers were treated like rock stars, and the tools and services they built gave customers more reasons to choose InDesign. Dunn sees that ecosystem as a large part of how InDesign became the tool of choice for creating print documents.
2. The cost of launching without partners
As InDesign eclipsed Quark, third-party engagement naturally faded, which Dunn calls an understandable shift in priorities. The bigger test came with Firefly Services, which offers Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Illustrator and InDesign as web services alongside the Firefly AI product. Dunn said Silicon Publishing spent decades urging Adobe to create exactly that.
The firm had a hand in building it. In 2018 the team went to Adobe Noida to help create the InDesign API that is now part of Firefly Services, and it also worked on the Photoshop API in its infancy. When Dunn heard in 2022 that these products were finally going to market, the plan was to build on them instead of the firm's own server layer.
That plan stalled. The initial go-to-market strategy did not include a role for third-party developers, and for a time Silicon Publishing could not access the APIs it had helped to create. Dunn accepts there were good reasons for a controlled launch, but having seen what outside developers did for InDesign, still calls it a missed opportunity.
3. Why going deep on one platform still pays
Silicon Publishing did not sit still while it waited. Over 20 years the firm built its own layer around InDesign Server, called Nucleus, to handle load balancing, job queuing and scaling, because InDesign Server on its own is neither a true server nor a web service. That layer now runs every solution the company offers.
In 2025 the door to Firefly Services opened again, and Silicon Publishing has since spent more than a year helping with Firefly Services solutions on a consulting basis. Dunn said many at Adobe have signalled that third parties will be engaged more broadly over time. So far, Silicon Publishing is the only third party working with the technology.
Being the only partner is not the goal. Dunn wants that number to grow, because that is how ecosystems get built. For founders betting a business on one vendor, the lesson is to go deep enough to be the partner the vendor needs, and then to argue openly for room for the rest of the field.
