John Warnock has an unusual passion for someone who has long been at the forefront of digital publishing. The soft spoken co-founder of Adobe Systems, who looks more like an academic than a businessman, collects rare books, some dating back several centuries before the internet era.

Since he has just stepped down as chief executive of the California-based web and print publishing software group to move into the new forward-looking role of chief technology officer, he should now have more time in which to indulge his expensive passion.

But despite his love of original scientific, economic and philosophical books - his collection includes works by Galileo, Newton, Kant and Adam Smith - his mind is very much on the future. He firmly believes that the use of paper needs to be reduced radically to save on both costs and resources.

Efficiency

"Printing doesn't go away. But paper as a transportation medium needs to go away. It's not terribly fuel-efficient, it's not great on the environment, it kills a lot of trees and there are just more efficient ways to communicate information. But to read information, I think paper's going to be with us a long time."

Mr Warnock, who at 60 is one of the most respected senior figures in the IT business - especially since Adobe, where he remains co-chairman with fellow founder Chuck Geschke, is on a strongly rising profits path - believes information will increasingly be transmitted in electronic form, even if the final product ends up on paper.

He does not think many people will take to screen-based 'e-books', even though more people will become used to reading from screens. But he does see a future for "print-on-demand" services, with books and publications transmitted online and printed when, where and in whichever quantities they are needed.

"By printing the book on demand, you're reducing inventories and book returns and all the transportation costs of intermediate distribution.

"The economics are all in favour of doing it this way. So I think you'll see lots and lots of electronic books. Most people will choose to have them delivered as physical objects."

For Mr Warnock, the electronic book means "the electronic deployment of intellectual content". In some cases, people will prefer to keep them as screen-based portable e-books. "I think textbooks are a particular example. A student would much rather carry around a laptop than 20lb of books.

"So I think there are markets where electronic versions of the books are going to be very viable. Reading a novel on the sand on the beach is not one of them."

The print-on-demand market is still being developed and print quality is being steadily improved. There are also differing views as to where the on-demand printing should be carried out.

"Some people believe that there will be a printing facility in every bookstore. I'm not particularly a fan of that model because the binding aspects are challenging and the level of education for somebody to operate a machine like that is high.

"Then there's the model where you put all the printing facilities next to the FedEx [Federal Express, the big US distribution company] offices and distribution points. I am a fan of that model because that, in some senses, minimises the transportation costs of the paper."

Adobe recently bought a specialist software company called Glassbook to enhance its position in electronic books. The move forms part of Adobe's strategy of linking up with key IT and communications companies as it pushes deeper into what it calls the network publishing market. Mr Warnock describes this as "content management - creation, management and delivery".

Its aim is to make complex, personalised content available at any time, anywhere on any device. Already, some 60 per cent of Adobe's revenues - which rose by 25 per cent last year to $1.27bn - come from web-based products. "We're seeing a fundamental shift in the centre of gravity of publishing to be much more centred on the web space," Mr Warnock says.

When announcing the network publishing strategy, Bruce Chizen, Adobe's former president who succeeds Mr Warnock as chief executive, called it the "third wave of publishing" after desktop and traditional web publishing.

"It's the era of creating visually rich, meaningful content that is managed and delivered reliably wherever the user wants, whether it's a web page, printer, cell phone, handheld device, PC or internet appliance."

Adobe has linked up with companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, RealNetworks and Art Technology Group to help develop the new technologies and services it envisages under network publishing. The idea is that content should be created once and presented exactly as intended, regardless of the device used. The user will be able to view the content anywhere and store, forward or print it wherever required.

Adobe's role will be to help control the way the content is sent and received. "In the authoring process, the articles or the content would get tagged with XML [extensible mark-up language used to describe data on the web] data tags," Mr Warnock explains.

"Obviously, the content would go into databases, but then it could be used in the production of the various media types. So all of our products over the next year will start to support XML tagging, the extraction of data from all of the print and web modalities."

Thus, content could be switched between different types of media. "The web is a different animal to print, but certainly they have common origins in the content that goes to both sides."

The way in which content is treated and distributed - whether as text, images, video or sound - is of growing importance to the business world in general, not just to publishing and media companies. Companies are more aware of how the web can enhance their business prospects, if used properly, and work against them, if neglected.

"The lay of the land is such that everyone is thinking more and more about tagged content and getting the content to a point where it can be put into a database and deployed out of that database," Mr Warnock says.

Companies now want to use the internet for competitive advantage, to streamline their businesses and get closer to customers. The time has gone when setting up asnazzy website, with some scope for online transactions, seemed to be enough.

"I think what's happening now - especially with the dotcom reassessment - is that every corporation is saying 'gee, what's the return on the investment in the internet, where is it good, where is it not good, and how can I leverage my content in such a way that I can reduce the overall cost of my deployment of information'."

Mr Warnock says Adobe's research shows that companies spend about 15 per cent of their revenues on average on creating and deploying information. "It's never called out as a line item, but it's an amazing expense and the internet is now sort of pulling all of that together and making it visible in one place."

Yet however much the internet influences our lives, the laid-back Mr Warnock thinks the impact can be exaggerated. Technology will certainly make huge strides in coming decades. "But in reality, 80 per cent of the world will be exactly the same. Only a small segment of the population changes very fast."

It is a reassuring message for those who feel overwhelmed by the high-tech wave.