“Microsoft has acquired iView Multimedia, developer of MediaPro,” Jonny Evans reports for Macworld UK. “Confirming the news, the smaller developer promised that Mac support in its digital asset-management products would continue. MediaPro is available for Mac OS X and certain versions of Windows.”
“‘Microsoft will fully support the existing Mac products, will continue to sell Mac versions of the current iView product line and will offer upgrade pricing to all Mac users of future products that may be available based on the iView products,’ said iView founder, Yan Calotychos,” Evans reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: MediaPro is a digital asset management application for importing, annotating, organizing, archiving, searching and distributing digital files.
Open letter from Yan Calotychos, founder of iView Multimedia:
Tuesday June 27, 2006
Today marks an exciting new chapter for iView and its relationship with our customers. We’re announcing that iView has been acquired and is now part of the Microsoft Corporation. With Microsoft’s purchase of iView, we are in a position to enhance our industry-leading product, whilst strengthening our customer service and support.
As digital asset management has become an essential requirement for all creative professionals, many of you have told us that iView MediaPro is a critical component of your business. We take that responsibility very seriously.
In my view, this Microsoft acquisition affords us an unprecedented opportunity to be even more responsive to a thriving market and ensure that iView MediaPro continues to perform to its full potential. Our engineering and marketing team here at iView are energized and excited to be joining the Microsoft team, and I personally will continue to be involved in the evolution of the product for years to come.
What this acquisition will mean for you, our customers, is that together we face a bigger and brighter future in managing your creative workflow. The product that was born on the Mac will remain on the Mac as well as on the Windows operating system. All iView products will continue to be sold on the iView website and through our partners and channel. Bottom line: You all can continue to use and buy iView products knowing that they will be fully supported as Microsoft evolves the products in the future on both the Windows and Mac platforms.
Your feedback and suggestions have been integral to the development and tuning of our software, and as always we welcome your comments and questions. We have provided an FAQ regarding this announcement and we will keep you informed through regular newsletters and blog postings as appropriate.
Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to sharing with you the evolution of iView MediaPro — the industry’s true standard for digital asset management.
Sincerely,
Yan and the iView Team
More info here.
MacDailyNews Take: “The product that was born on the Mac will remain on the Mac?” Yeah, okay. Call us cynical if you will, but why do we feel like the rest of the sentence was omitted? You know, something like: “…as a hobbled second-class application that goes without updating forever until we just cancel the Mac version.” Hope springs eternal; maybe Microsoft will do a fine job – there’s a first time for everything. What do you think?
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Mac users should not buy Microsoft software (or hardware) – May 16, 2003
It’ll be another Internet Explorer.
By the way, did I mention Virtual PC?
We are the Borg. You will be assimilated.
That was a very nice letter written by Yan Calotychos. I liked the part where he says “this Microsoft acquisition affords us an unprecedented opportunity to be even more responsive to a thriving market and ensure that iView MediaPro continues to perform to its full potential.” What he really meant was, “This Microsoft acquisition means that I don’t have to fight to make ends meet anymore. Microsoft told me that if I didn’t sell, they would run my product out of business like they did Netscape.”
Not holding breat as of…now.
There won’t be a Mac version, plus Microsoft is about to release a digital asset management software package along with a “pro” web designer software package called Microsoft Web Expression Designer that’s Windows only. It seems they are trying to gear up and compete against Adobe Dreamweaver in that space. It also seems as though that they want to have a product like Adobe Bridge.
It’s like a mugger asking to borrow your phone whilst holding a knife to your throat… says ones thing but means another.
Microsoft finally geta an “i” app. How happy are they? Fresh towels for everyone! Huzzah!
Microsoft will be discontinuing the Mac version of iView Multimedia this year.
crap! I just bought iview media last week.
Wonder if I can get my money back
Well, that’s one way for Microsoft to catch up with Apple’s OS X and the iLife suite…If you can’t innovate or even copy, purchase! Of course, iView MediaPro has been around a long time, and I believe it probably pre-dates iPhoto.
Should we watch for more media hub acquisitions? They already are supposed to have an “iTunes killer” in the works. What else?
Yawn. Another app, down the crapper.
Reading between the lines, emphasis mine…
“Microsoft will fully support the EXISTING Mac products, will continue to sell Mac versions of the CURRENT iView product line and will offer upgrade pricing to all Mac users of future products that MAY be available based on the iView products.”
I wouldn’t exactly put my faith in that weasel speak, especially coming from Microsoft. MS bought this company to compete with Apple, not help it along. And the previous owners no longer control it’s direction, despite their assurances of a bright future for Mac development. Besides, Apple has already given them a perfect reason to cancel Mac development, BootCamp.
A shame.
they said it would remain on the mac, but they didn’t say the mac os. they compared mac to windows in the sentence which is a nonparallel construction, but they might have done that on purpose.
Awww GREAT….love this application. I work with very high-res images and this thing is fast.
Now…its going to turn to crap. Bleah. >:P
This absolutely sucks. I use the Pro version daily and have invested a lot of time with the gallery output templates. I’m sure it won’t be long until it’s gone, or full of bugs. Lame.
Cya iVMMPro, we hardly knew ya…
I guess here’s hoping that Aperture really comes together!
I might not be getting something but could this replace the nearly dissapeared WinFS?
They probably had Redmond dead-to-rights in a patent situation, and M$ only way out was to acquire–as usual. So long to that one.
While MS gives iView major updates for Windows (read Vista only), the Mac version will be stuck with minor updates, if any.
Eventually, they’ll be completely different products and MS will likely incorporate something proprietary that isn’t compatible with Mac like DRM’d Windows Media streaming video.
After all, they’ve tried pushing a replacement for jpg.
Microsoft hates open standards.
I might not be getting something but could this replace the nearly dissapeared WinFS?
No.
iView Media Pro was a nice app with a long history that predates iPhoto. Guess we can write it off for the Mac platform. Too bad. 🙁
THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!
Has no one noticed that Microsoft sells Mac software (a little-known suite called Office)? They also JUST brought out a keyboard and mouse specifically for Macs. Yeah, this sounds like a company that wants to kill anything Apple-related.
Take off your blinders and see that not everything MS does is to compete with Apple. I guarantee they spend a lot more time thinking about Google than Apple, except maybe in the WMA division.
Oh, I won’t be surprised if iView for Mac gets cut, because even people who love the product will stop buying it now that MS owns it. It’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is bad news. iView is much better than iPhoto. Ugh, why didn’t Apple buy them first??
Maybe now that MS owns it, they will lower the price. That would be one possible good outcome. Assuming, of course, that they continue to develop it. My gut feeling is that they will churn out 1 or 2 more upgrades, but at some point in the future the Mac version will die. This will probably happen when integration with Windows-based corporate IT technology trumps Mac compatibility.
Of course, sometimes if a company can’t make a go of something, they will sell or spin it off to someone who can. How many times have various former MetaCreations apps changed hands? But somehow I can’t think of any examples of MS doing this.