MacDailyNews Note: Adobe has 8,660 employees. Currently.
Beatweek reports, “That’s right, Adobe intends to cripple the entire iPhone platform, which at last count includes more than fifty million units sold, by denying iPhones to its own employees. Instead, Adobe’s team will be forced to use Google’s open source Android platform, the mobile equivalent of Linux, for their daily mobile phone usage.”
Full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, it’s only natural that lazy ingrate Adobe’s employees should get intimately familiar with the next platform they’re going to fsck up.
Have fun hovering over Flash menus on your inaccurate, spastic Android touchscreens, lazy ingrate Adobe employees. Not that Android’s touchscreen spasticity and inaccuracy even matters in that case.
We can’t wait to see Flash deployed across all non-Apple platforms so that inferior, nondescript, joy-sapping, watered-down, lowest common denominator Flash ports litter the non-Apple platforms, even further diminishing their prospects versus Apple’s products, where even the most minute details matter, where apps take advantage of all the latest Apple innovations, and where customers will flock ever faster.
Forcing your employees to use and develop bloatware for inferior platforms is a much better use of your time, than would be leading the market (Remember that? Probably not, it’s been so long since you did it; most of the people who accomplished it are long gone) by building tools to allow developers to create open HTML5 content. Ah, well, this is a software need that is better filled by other, markedly less lazy, more-talented companies. Then you can foolishly buy them for 3X the price and ruin their products, too, with your port and bloat mentality – right, lazy ingrate Adobe?
Adobe. Striving for Mediocrity.™ (And never quite getting there.)
Thanks, lazy ingrate Adobe, for being so easily manipulatable that your CEO and, by extension, your entire company, look and act just like Steve Jobs’ marionette.
Note to advertisers: (including those who advertise via third-party ad networks and become, in effect, our advertisers): Your Flash-based ads are no longer reaching the most well-heeled customers online: 50+ million iPhone owners. They’re also not hitting brand new iPad users or 35+ million iPod touch users. If you care about reaching people with discretionary income, you might want to consider dumping your flash-based ads and moving to a more open format that people with money and the will to spend it can actually see.
Help kill Adobe’s Flash:
• Ask MarketWatch to offer HTML5 video via the customer support web form here.
• Ask CNBC to offer HTML5 video via the customer support web form here.
• Contact Hulu and ask them to offer HTML5 video via email:
• Ask ESPN360 to offer HTML5 video instead Flash via their feedback page here.
• Join YouTube’s HTML5 beta here.
• On Vimeo, click the “Switch to HTML5 player” link below any video.
By the way, do not buy Adobe’s Photoshop Elements until you have tried Pixelmator’s free 30-day trial. We use Pixelmator daily.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Mike F.” and “zmarc” for the heads up.]
@deep dish
So true.
It’s a sad state of affairs for John and Chuck to witness I am sure. A far cry from their old PS, Illustrator and early Photoshop days. Disheartening to see a once great company like Adobe take this current path and approach…
How about some responsible journalism and less sensationalism?
MDN should have taken the time to read the original CNET article.
Nowhere does it say the Adobe employees are being “denied” iPhones.
The CNET article says that Adobe plans to give free Android phones to its employees.
“It’s not clear which phone employees will receive (various HTC phones and the Nexus One were mentioned) and it will not be a mandatory shift. “
It also says “It’s also not clear if this will be a perk just for developers or for the entire company”
Giving their employees free phones is a little different than denying iPhones to its employees.
Keep pushing the issue and, before they know it, Apple will release Apple Creative Suite.
MDN: I disagree! Adobe has achieved mediocrity a long time ago. It started when they got in bed with MSFT and completed when they decided to be years late for the OSX-Intel-Mac revolution.
OK, that’s it. I’m replacing Photoshop Elements with Pixelmator. Take that, Adobe!
I, for one, am saddened at what seems to have become of Adobe. They have taken criticism of Flash personally, where they should have taken it as sage advice. The Creative Suite is an icon in the industry, but Adobe’s second rate treatment of Apple and OSX for the last decade bodes a murky future.
This is all doubly ironic since Adobe just finally released CS5 in 64bit Cocoa. Not even Apple has managed to port all their desktop and Pro apps to 64bit.
I use every day Photoshop Elements
Last night I bought Pixelmator.
Maybe all this give an opportunity to small developers.
I just banned all Adobe products from my company in retaliation to their retaliation. I’ve got em all but the only one I ever use (occasionally) is Photoshop. And now I’m going to click on that Pixelmater ad up there and go buy that to use as its replacement.
Wow… this, on top of all their other recent childish behavior, really shows the kind of culture that must exist over at Adobe. No wonder their products are suffering from quality control problems.
Adobe has really gotten pathetic. Do they really want to have a pissing contest when half of their revenue comes from Mac users? It’s kind of like calling up your boss and telling him to go pound sand. The results are not very good.
This is entirely misleading.
Adobe is going to be giving all of their employees Android based phones. The employees can still use iPhones if they want.
Once you get past the logic of Adobe pursuing Flash for mobile development, then the thought of giving their employees Android based phones (instead of other non-Flash capable phones) makes sense.
They aren’t costing Apple 8,660 lost iPhone sales, they’re giving the Android platform 8,660 sales (likely at a highly discounted rate).
Oh… This is SURE to boost morale among the employees who have shelled out their hard-earned coins to purchase an iPhone and have grown to love it.
If this is true it just makes Adobe’s management look stupid, desperate and pathetic.
I too hope Apple has their own “Creative Suite” waiting in the wings in case of a retaliatory nuclear attack by Adobe. I’ve got to wonder if Steve really would have stirred this ant hill as he did if he didn’t have a very solid “Plan B”. With the information we have now it’s obvious both companies and consumers have a lot to lose in an all out war.
This is getting ridiculous. Adobe needs a new CEO, plain and simple. He’s in over his head and is now making knee-jerk decisions because his pride was hurt in the sandbox. Note to Adobe, replace your CEO or I’d wager that in 5 years even your Creative Suite will be irrelevant…
Some how I dont think Terry White will be selling his Macs.
For those who don’t know him (and to know him is to love him) Terry is a top Adobe evangelist and the president of MacGroup Detroit one of the largest and most active Mac User Groups in the country thanks to Terry.
OK, so Adobe has 2 products–PS and Illustrator–that don’t have direct (and much better) competitors. Someone (Pixelmator? You listening??) needs to come up with pro versions of their apps to compete not just with PS Elements, but the big guy himself. If you do, the world will beat a door to your apps. Oh, and if you do, please (please!) make it actually start up in less than 2 minutes. That’d be nice….. Currently I can use Aperture and Pixelmator for 90% of my still graphics work. Just get me over the other 10% and we’re golden!
I don’t understand. Why doesn’t Apple just buy Adobe with their petty cash?
is that even legal, can you tell an employee what they can buy?
@ Palm
I used to be the Tier 3 tech support agent for Elements. It’s horrible. I haven’t used Pixelmator since the first beta, but even then it impressed me. It’s certainly a lot better looking than Elements, and not crippled like the Organizer-less Mac version.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, it’s only natural that lazy ingrate Adobe’s employees should get intimately familiar with the next platform they’re going to fsck up.
MDN you owe the Adobe employees an apology for that snarky remark.
You cannot let that stand. Before apologizing, perhaps rewording your statement to shift the focus onto Adobe’s management is more appropriate.
Your assumption that all Adobe employees agree with management’s actions is disingenuous and I think if you could just collect yourselves for a moment you’d realize you may be going to far.
I think more than a few of us tire of you calling the employees of Adobe “lazy”. We all answer to somebody who calls the shots, including you and your staff, and though we may not agree in spirit, or principle, with the actions of our leadership, for the most part we believe in the guiding principles that sustains a company.
Thousands of Adobe employees love Apple and their products and are pained just as much as the rest of us by the actions of their upper management, but what are they going to do?
Individually they suffer and wince in silence at the the things that are said and done in the name of their company, but are powerless to stop it. Sure, individuals can walk away, one at a time, but what good does that do? Perhaps after a thousand have walked away, someone will finally realize this battle is insignificant in the war over mindshare.
Adobe’s management is calling Apple’s bluff and their board of directors is taking a wait and see approach. The Directors will be looking for cues from within; employee morale, rates of attrition, and trend analysis as well as outside opinions. People a lot smarter than Adobe’s upper management will weigh in on this issue as well, and all of Adobe’s employees will be paying attention.
Sometimes we’re so close to our work we lose sight of the bigger picture.
In the months ahead, Shantanu Narayen could find himself alone in his strategy to forge a roadmap into the mobile space if he is unable to connect the dots between his company’s overarching strategy and the rest of the industry. Failing that, he will resign having publicly embarrassing himself, his company and all its employees, but not before he fires everyone who influenced his decisions going forward.
On that day, the company will rejoice, having recovered from the dark days and will begin to refocus their energies more productively.
But until every Adobe employee personally denounces the actions of Shantanu Narayen, they will be stigmatized by your “lazy ingrate” label.
Remove the label and give them back their dignity.
Respectfully submitted,
To paraphrase the great Yogi: Adobe’s so crowded, nobody goes there anymore.
I second G4Dualie’s comment.
This has nothing to do with Adobe’s employees in general.
Does this Indian guy possesses a valid hb1 visa
To work in the USA ? Otherwise I will inform his status to the Governor of Arizona. An illegal alien who overstayed his student visa.
ClickToFlash.com
Yeah, MDN, I’m afraid you screwed the pooch on this one. Adobe is giving free Android phones to their employees — they’re not “denying” them iPhones. Always click all the way through to the source article before writing a headline.
Of course, in the end, it amounts to much the same thing. Adobe’s hope is that these employees, having been given their freebies, will not buy iPhones and will evangelize Android and Mobile Flash to their friends. But that just doesn’t sound as dramatic.
And of course, none of this changes the fact that Adobe’s cause is pretty much hopeless here…
——RM
Mashable Poll:
Apple or Adobe: Who’s Right in the Flash Debate?
Current Votes:
Apple: 4015
Adobe: 1577
http://mashable.com/2010/05/01/apple-adobe-poll/