“If Apple buys Adobe, is the operating system market up for grabs? It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see why. Borrowing heavily from Mr. Cringely’s terminology, there are several industry realities and stories, each having its own vector/trajectory that might lead one to seeing the importance of Adobe to Apple’s well being. Adobe owns key graphic sector applications. Meanwhile, Microsoft has a strangle-hold over Apple with Office for the Mac. Were Apple to buy Adobe, it would give Apple the leverage it needs to ensure Microsoft keeps making Office for the Mac,” John Kheit writes for The Mac Observer.
“Make no mistake, Apple is much like Blanche DuBois; it relies on the ‘kindness’ of Microsoft. At any given time, all Microsoft has to do to put Apple down like a sick pony is stop making Microsoft Office for the Mac,” Kheit writes. “Right now Microsoft will not do that for a slew of reasons, e.g., antitrust issues, Microsoft makes a boat load of money on sales of Office to Mac users, etc. Nevertheless, were it to become threatened as Apple transitions into more markets, Microsoft will not hesitate in pulling the plug on Office, and down the tubes Apple will go.”
Kheit’s “transitions” include:
• Apple’s ‘iWork’ office suite, which Apple is developing “at a glacial pace”
• Apple and Intel: the target is Windows
• Apple Media dominance: iPod+iTunes, potential future CE products
Kheit writes, “Were Apple to buy Adobe (and what the heck, maybe Quark), it would own enough key applications necessary to Windows users to thwart Microsoft. Should Microsoft threaten to pull Office from the Mac, Apple could then threaten to pull the Adobe products from Windows. This would be bad for both companies, and basically get them into a big ole game of mutually assured destruction (or at least mutually assured losses of revenue). Could Apple do this? Sure it could. Adobe’s market cap is around $17 Billion. Apple has well over $7 Billion in cash and its market cap is over $60 Billion. Apple has enough cash and stock for a buyout. And if Apple purchased a majority stake, the stock would soar for both companies; you might even see a dip in Microsoft stock. That would be a home run for Apple.”
Full article, an excellent, thought-provoking read, here.
Is Microsoft Office really that critical for Apple Mac? Seriously, would Apple’s Mac platform just up and die without future versions of Microsoft Office? Apple would have to stop doing promotions like this: Get Microsoft Office for up to 50% off when you buy a new Mac at the Apple Store, but doesn’t the Mac have a lot more going for it besides the ability to run Microsoft Office? Anyway, Apple would gain Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Flash, etc. if they bought Adobe. It would be a blockbuster deal, that’s for sure. What do you think?
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Adobe to acquire Macromedia in $3.4 billion stock deal – April 18, 2005
Apple and Adobe go to war – March 26, 2003
Adobe prefers (and promotes) PCs over Macs – March 24, 2003
Is Microsoft Office really that critical for Apple Mac? Ummm… YES!
Another short-sighted, idiotic and most of al,l childish take from MDN.
MDN takes remind me of a five year old running around the house singing “Na-na-na-na-na”
I agree completely with pog, but for slightly different reasons. For better or worse, Word is the de-facto standard for collaborative writing in the social sciences. With parallel versions of Office for Mac/Windows, it is rarely necessary or relevant to know a collaborator’s operating system, so even in heavily Windows-dominated environmens Mac users can work productively and can escape the scornful looks of 10+ years ago when cross-platform collaboration was more cumbersome. It seems likely that MS would ensure that any 3rd party “office-compatible” programs would have just enough glitches to prove the point. MS’s play is not self-evident, though, because many of us in dual-OS environments still need a few industry-specific Windows programs and have no easy solution for running them without buying a cheap Dell box (Wine & VPC are not viable) for everyday use. If MacIntel’s are reasonably easy to dual-boot, MS stands to sell both Windows and a copy of Office to a large segment of the Mac-hardware market.
Gotcha Fred, but it still seems kind of hypothetical..
I mean, couldn’t Microsoft just as easily, “hostily” take over Apple if it wanted to?
For one, Cringely, would NEVER recommend Apple buying Adobe. Didn’t the author read Cringely’s blast at Adobe, becoming fat and lazy and useless a month or two ago?
Second, how does buying Adobe help Apple kill off MS Office?
This is just nonsense.
As has been so well pointed out often on this site:
APPLE IS A HARDWARE COMPANY, DICK!
Why would they ever violate their own business model by purchasing a software company? Guess you can’t always believe what an Apple zelot says.
On the flip side.
What would happen if MS bought Adobe.
OH Sh*t.
Triumph, you may not like “Gates and his rim-jockeys,” but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a say. The Office products have been selling so long and so well now that they are far beyond mere ubiquity. For many, many users, platform decisions come down to a handful of questions, at least one or more of which have to do with Microsoft compatibility. Until THAT changes, Mr. Bill continues to hold the upper hand, while YOU continue to, uh, POOP on stuff. Yeh, heh, hess.
1. Wish Commonwealth of Massachusetts success for demanding open source for posterity. Other states will follow its example.
2. iEverything is tired. Save Appleworks brand name.
3. AAPL stock valuation makes an acquisition using stock more desirable. Save the cash.
Adobe FrameMaker really sucks big time.
Apple’s Final Cut Pro Studio, Shake, Logic and Aperture are all hardware products? And iTunes songs?
Apple is primarily a hardware company. In terms of Mac/Mac OS, yes Apple is a hardware company. But overall, software counts – if even only to shore up the hardware platform and make it sing.
Didn’t I just read somewhere that Microsoft is opening the MS Office fileformats (doc, xls, ppt) and also the next generation XML based formats… Correct me if I’m wrong.
Hey! Someone is using my initials! I’ve been posting on here for years with those letters and never had any other posters with it…
This might have to go ‘fist-a-cuffs’ ….
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Reverse Thrust said
“Why would they ever violate their own business model by purchasing a software company? Guess you can’t always believe what an Apple zelot says”
Well, they did buy emagic… You may recognize the result as Apple LogicPro
They also got Astart, you may recognize the result as DVD Studio Pro
They aslo got SoundJam, you may recognize the result as iTunes
Software isn’t violating any hardware business model. Hardware is nothing without software. (Hint, its the software stupid)
In each case, Apple has aquired software assets, and made it into something equal to or better than current 3rd party apps. If Adobe doesn’t want Apple to do a real web page development package (for example) Maybe they should at least keep the mac version of dreamweaver on equal development footing with the windows version. Adobe has a bad habit of screwing longtime Mac customers by slow to non existant development and then crying foul when Apple does something better. Think FinalCut pro
I rest my case…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/22/microsoft_opens_formats/
http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/21/209238
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1891829,00.asp
Note to the author. Apple already has that leverage.
Here’s sorta how the conversation goes
(phone rings)
SJ: “hello this is steve”
BG: “Steve, this is bill”
SJ: “Hello bill, it’s been a while”
BG: “yeah steve it has. Hey nice job with the iPod. Our employees love them despite our threats to fire anyone caught using one in public and our attempt to kill the word Podcast”
SJ: “yeah it was a pretty good move huh?
BG: “Yeah, so really why im calling today steve is i wanted to let you know that we are dropping development for office for Mac”
SJ: “Oh, ok….. Thats fine”
BG: (long pause)… um maybe you didnt hear me. we are dropping office for mac.
SJ :”no, i heard you just fine”
BG: “oh…ok.
SJ: “yeah because as soon as we cant sell Macs anymore we are just going to release OSX for any x86 PC and by the way we will sell it for $59.00. And while we at it let me tell them to add iLife for windows, iWork and all our pro apps to that as well.
BG: “oh, ok…er um ( a loud voice in the background screams “IM GOING TO FSKING KILL YOU followed by the sound of a chair hitting the wall)
so yeah, they dont need to buy Adobe for leverage but yea it would still be cool.
If Apple wants to protect itself, I would recommend they contribute money and programmers towards OpenOffice.org, specifically a Aquified Mac Port. If MS were to halt Office for the Mac, then Apple would be able to fall back onto OO with it’s Oasis document format. This would seriously push that format, which would end up having a lot of other people start to learn about OO and realize that it does a lot of what they need for free. I don’t think MS wants people to start looking for alternatives on either Mac or Windows as that would start the downfall of Office as the standard.
Regardless, I think Apple should invest some time & money in OpenOffice, but who knows if MS would get mad about that.
Nice take, Hammer.
I don’t feel that MS Office is critical for the survival of the Macintosh. If Office for Mac suddently went away Apple and other developers would extend and improve the import and export to Word format that now exists in Pages. Back in the early 90s we use to have to “save as” our Mac Word files to PC Word format before sending them to our Windows-based co-workers. In recent years the ease at which PC and Mac users can share Office file is a great convenience. I find that most of the PC folks I’ve worked with are not even aware that Office files for Mac and PC are interchangeable.
On the other point of the article on Apple purchasing Adobe. Man, oh man, that would be something to dream about. I would love it if Apple purchased Adobe and then cancelled further development of all Windows versions of Adobe Creative Suite. Integrate the graphics power of Adobe CS with Mac OS X and Apple hardware to create the ultimate graphics platform! A guy can dream…
I guess some people are just too sentimental for the days of Apple death knells. (and have too much time on their hands)
Yes Yes
Apple, buy Adobe
and bring back Freehand
JJ,
Microsoft could never buy Apple (or Adobe, for that matter) because the FTC would never allow it.
Hammer, you’ve got an excellent point there. I forgot that Apple’s already got a heavy sword hanging over Microsoft’s neck.
Oh, and Quevar, I agree, Apple should put some effort into helping the OpenOffice effort. Personally, I use Microsoft’s office at home primarily for school projects so I can share with classmates on team projects, but I’d just as well kick all Microsoft products off my Macs. Plus, if OpenOffice was feature-rich enough (namely, TOC, indexing, bookmarking, footnoting, and image handling)I’d ditch MS Office at work in an instant. I’m the tech writing department in a small company, and I have to be able to share files with everyone, so Framemaker, Quark, and InDesign are not really possible for me. But a good OpenOffice would be pristine!
Apple should have bought Bungee before Microsoft did and made Halo the killer app for Mac Gamers.
Hammer– I like it. Probable.
What if….
The intel macs will run windows applications seamlessly. Then, MS has absolutely no hold on apple. I think this is likely to happen and probably part of Jobs strategy in moving to intel. Who cares if they make a Mac version, if a person can use the Windows version? The threat will mean very little…