“Having completed its acquisition of Macromedia on December 3, 2005, Adobe is the fifth largest software company in the world… [and] Adobe’s vision is grand. CEO Bruce Chizen hopes that Adobe will provide the interface for any device with a screen — ‘from a refrigerator to an automobile to a video game to a computer to a mobile phone.’ Such ambitions put Adobe squarely in the sights of Microsoft, which currently dominates desktop software development… Knowledge@Wharton recently met with Bruce Chizen for an interview.”
Knowledge@Wharton: Let’s start with the basic question: What was the primary motivation behind the acquisition of Macromedia?
Chizen: Flash.
Knowledge@Wharton: That simple?
Chizen: The combination of [Acrobat’s] PDF [file format] and the Adobe Reader with Flash’s SWF [file format] and the Flash Player enables us to create an “engagement platform.” Think of it as a layer or a vehicle in which anybody can present information that could be engaged with in an interactive, compelling, reliable, relatively secure way — across all kinds of devices, all kinds of operating systems.
Knowledge@Wharton: This obviously brings up certain competitive issues. Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation has similar ambitions, and Microsoft is talking of “Presentation Foundation Everywhere.” They may offer this platform not only in the Windows environment, but on the Macintosh and possibly others as well. Are we going to see head-on competition [between Adobe and Microsoft] to establish the platform for the next generation of web and application development?
Chizen:Microsoft’s attempt with Windows Vista is a “1.0” attempt. What they end up delivering, when they end up delivering, and how portable it really is across operating systems, are still unknown. They are supposed to ship Windows Vista the end of this year. Avalon and Metro, or what’s now the XML Paper specification — which has become the Windows Presentation Foundation — is an intriguing concept. It’s great that they have recognized what we have done and have tried to imitate it.
Looking forward, Chizen told Knowledge@Wharton, “we want to be able to begin to integrate the Studio products, especially Dreamweaver and Flash authoring, with products like Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. The Creative Suite with Studio — we want to see more integration there, making our customers’ lives easier, more productive, more efficient.”
Knowledge@Wharton: Are you dedicated to cross-platform?
Chizen: Apple is still critical.
Knowledge@Wharton: To some extent, Apple’s continued strength plays to your advantage. If it’s a single platform world, much of the advantage that you bring isn’t there.
Chizen: I agree. Microsoft could control the whole workflow. Fortunately, it’s not just Apple. It’s Apple on the desktop side, but it’s also folks like SAP, Sun and EMC and others on the infrastructure side. Because if it was just a Microsoft world, there is no room for Adobe. But people don’t want to be locked into a certain workflow — whether it’s a desktop workflow or an IT workflow. They don’t want to be locked into any one workflow. Microsoft works well if you own their servers and their desktop and their handhelds. Then they have a great story. It begins to fall apart when you add in a Java-based server, a Linux desktop or a Mac desktop and so on. That’s where Adobe comes into play.
Full article with much more here.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Adobe: no native Intel Mac support until 2007; Photoshop could be 14 months away – February 01, 2006
Report: Adobe to take on Apple’s Aperture with new ‘LightRoom’ application for Mac OS X – January 06, 2006
Should Apple buy Adobe as leverage against Microsoft? – December 16, 2005
What will users lose as Adobe swallows Macromedia? – April 19, 2005
Adobe to acquire Macromedia in $3.4 billion stock deal – April 18, 2005
time to buy adobe
too late.
btw, screw adobe. macromedia ROOLED… that is until adobe acquired it.
bye, bye freehand… lol.
And make it build for Mac, Intel Mac, AND Windows.
If Apple is still critical, where is your damm universal binary for Photoshop.
“Before the game is afoot, thou still let’st slip.”
King Henry IV, Shakespeare
I think it may be the other way round. Adobe is still important to Apple until Aperture matures and Apple come out with a professional Photoshop replacement.
Look at the trends;
Audio – first iTunes, the the logic apps, garageband.
Video – iMovie, iDVD, Studio, Final Cut etc.
So how about Still images: iPhoto, now Aperture – what’s next?
And Apple are even starting with Wed design with iWeb – pretty easy to see how far they can go with that!
The amazing thing for me is that Apple ares oon going to dominate the digital world, not by being first, or by usng their monopoly, but by bringing out apps which fill customer needs. Beautiful to behold.
Another thing to understand is that the first version is a testbed. iPhoto has evolved into a powerful app and spawned Aperture foreven more professsional needs. It took 5 versions but it was worth the transitions.
“Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation”
Yet another completely ridiculous product name from Microsoft.
Why dont they just called Microsoft Pancake Beanie Intensifier. That would sound about as good.
*sigh* Aperture is NOT a Photoshop competitor.
Adobe BS, Adobe will announce Universal Binaries of Creative Suite at the same time Apple announces that it’s PRO DESKTOPS are shipping with Intel processors.
Windows Presentation Foundation is a great name. WPF. For short, we can call it WinPoof.
Apple may be critical for Adobe, but Adobe is in no hurry to please the user. There IS no competitor for PhotoShop.
-Aperture & PhotoShop user.
=We’ll make Universal Binaries when we can extract the most money out of you, not when you NEED it!=
Chizen: “But people don’t want to be locked into a certain workflow — whether it’s a desktop workflow or an IT workflow.”
They obviously haven’t dealt with IT Department in QR (Queensland Rail) – those people happy little MS hostages.
When is Color-It! going to make it to Intel Macs?
Microsoft works well if you own their servers and their desktop and their handhelds. Then they have a great story. It begins to fall apart when you add in a Java-based server, a Linux desktop or a Mac desktop and so on. That’s where Adobe comes into play.
If he believes that, then he should start playing nice with Apple.
Mac share is growing and could reach 10% in the next two years. How much of that share growth will come from creative pro’s changing out their Wintels for Mactels? I’d venture it will be significant.
“Knowledge@Wharton: Are you dedicated to cross-platform?
Chizen: Apple is still critical.”
He’s hedging his bets.
Yes, he’s hedging his bets. It’s good business. I can respect that.
“Adobe BS, Adobe will announce Universal Binaries of Creative Suite at the same time Apple announces that it’s PRO DESKTOPS are shipping with Intel processors.”
I second that.
For many many photographers Aperture WILL be competition for Photoshop.
Assuming Apple iron out the issues this year, I for one will move to MacBook Pro and Aperture and us Photoshop CS only for rare and specific editing jobs. I certainly won’t go buying yet another version of Photoshop. The thing is looking more and more like an item on my annual tax return.
apple is still critical?
as opposed to it soon wont be?
chizen is not an apple fan at all. which is surprising, because if it wasnt for apple adobe wouldnt be here.
chizen is a sales guy, and says only what his lackies tell him to say to reporters. The lack of support for dual binaries after knowing full well of apples plans has not gone unnoticed by mr jobs.
expect a mac only photoshop competitor soon.
im thinking that apple should have bought macromedia.
Tommy Boy –
Aperture is NOT a Photoshop competitor.
Yes, that’s absolutely true, it’s not a competitor to Photoshop …… at the moment.
During the January keynote, Steve effusively praised Quark for being amongst the first to deliver a UB version of a major application. He also mocked Adobe for being very slow.
Now if Steve is making comments of that sort in public, one interpretation could be that he has a strategy in place that might reduce Apple’s dependence on Adobe.
Without a doubt, Photoshop is the only graphics application that is universally used, but many of it’s users only use it for photographic work. If Apple were to build on it’s achievements with iPhoto and Aperture, then it could develop an application that would suit most photographer’s requirements.
You only have to glance at FCP to see how something was initially seen as an alternative to Premiere and developed rapidly into a world-class editing system for movies and TV productions. It didn’t merely take over from Premiere, but has stormed past it to take a huge chunk of the top-end editing market away from Avid.
I’ve no idea if Apple will actually try to take on Photoshop, but it’s quite obvious that the major parts are already in place and Steve is pissed with Adobe for being so slow. If I were Adobe, I’d be hurrying things along, because Apple isn’t the sort of company to sit patiently and twiddle it’s thumbs while others get their act together.
Well, already Apple is basically attacking Adobe from all sides. Below is a list of the main Adobe apps, with their Apple counterparts on the right:
Adobe Premiere > Apple Final Cut Pro
Adobe Audition > Apple Soundtrack
Adobe After Effects > Apple Motion
Adobe Photoshop Elements > Apple iPhoto
Adobe Lightroom/Bridge > Apple Aperture
Adobe Acrobat Reader > Apple Preview
Adobe Encore > Apple DVD Studio Pro
Adobe InDesign > Apple Pages (sort of)
Adobe Illustrator > ?
Adobe Photoshop > ?
As you can see, the battle between Adobe and Apple is already fully engaged. However I don’t think Apple will ever attempt to knock down Photoshop because of its killer app status. Photoshop could be the most famous computer program in the world which has spawned words such as ‘photoshopped’ etc.
Here’ hoping that after Aperture, Apple will come with a Photoshop killer and grow the Pro Photography line like they did with video apps.
Screw Adobe and their Carbon apps…
I get the impression that Chizen is one of only 2 people in the whole Computer industry (2nd one being Steve Jobs) that could have Bill Gates and Microsoft by the balls.
Put these 2 guys together and you can say goodbye to Microsoft…
Does anyone else in the world use Adobe FrameMaker except me? I’m forced to use that worthless bug filled piece of word processing crap. FrameMaker is so bad that I have refused to use any other Adobe product except Adobe Acrobat.
There are cheaper and better alternatives to all Adobe products.
Adobe has burned me hard over the last 10 years with crappy bug riddled apps and product discontinuations, I’m not forgetting it EVER.
Photoshop DOES look like an income tax prep app, KLUDGY! Has Chizel ever watched a nooby try to learn PhoShop, what with commands and processes stuck in nooks and crannys all around the app? And that sideways roundtrip through ImageReady, what crap that is.
Adobe is missing a huge revenue opportunity by not coming out with a simple-UB upgrade sooner rather than later, they’re hurting the users, not Apple. I’d easily pay $50 for todays PhoShop in UB, it would be cheaper than gobbling up a few spare G5s to insure our processing ability thru the Intel transition.
This is one of those situations where Windows running on a MacTel (in protected mode) will free Apple to fire broadside directly into Adobe with a PhoShop/Illustrator killer app.
Please Apple, DO IT!
Bill,
A lot of your app comparisons fail to mention which platform they reside on.
Apple creates great killer apps to sell hardware, even iPods.
Acrobat can create interactive PDF’s and much more, Preview just displays them.
Also the ability of lot of Apple apps etc to create PDF’s strenghtens Adobe’s hand against Microsoft made formats.
Deals between Adobe, Apple and Microsoft are made all the time, it’s a lot better than open competition which can cost billions of dollars for little gain,
Apple sells the crapware that’s OfficeMac, M$ keeps producing VPC.
And rememeber it’s a part of a clever conspiracy to get us to accept Trusted Computing which our computers will be completely out of our control.
(well you could pull the plug)