Adobe Drops Mac Support For Premiere

Theaetetus writes "In a story on MacCentral, it's revealed that Adobe Systems is dropping support for the Mac in the new version of video editing app Premiere: 'If Apple's already doing an application, it makes the market for a third-party developer that much smaller,' said David Trescot, senior director of Adobe's digital video products group. In response to the news, Apple issued a statement welcoming Premiere customers to make the switch to the Mac and Final Cut Pro."

Comments

Re:Adobe and Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the overwhelming opinion of all software vendors involved in both Mac && Windows application development.

Just like the marketplace in general, Windows accounts for 97%+ of every software vendor's revenue stream (in regards to their software, and only when both Mac && Win apps are being developed; obviously, this wouldn't apply to BareBones, 4D, etc etc, neither would it apply to straight PC-shops), and Mac accounts for 3%- of revenue. So, for all of the headaches required to support the mac platform, is it profitable? No, it is not. If a vendor must choose between supporting a Mac app that isn't totally competition proof, and raking in tons of cash, vs. simply killing the app off so as not to have to support it, they'll kill it off every time. The bottom line will always prevail here.

There is also an unspoken fear among software developers regarding Mac OSX - that somehow, someway, some UNIX nut is going to reverse-engineer their application and release the source on the web. It might not be a justifiable fear - after all, in theory, the same fear could easily be applied to Win apps - however, as OSX is FreeBSD/Mach based, there is an air of 'openness' surrounding the Mac OS, and that 'vibe', so to speak, penetrates the closed-source software that runs on Mac as well. Software vendors are currently lying awake at night, dreading the day that they read on /. that such-and-such application for MacOSX was reverse engineered, that the source code can be downloaded from some FTP server off in Korea or Taiwan, and that it now runs on any *BSD, Solaris, Linux, etc etc.

Just imagine that, for a moment - Photoshop, available for free, that runs on Linux. If I were Adobe, I'd pull all of my Mac titles off the shelves immediately.

So does this mean the end...

[autopr0n]

Of having Photoshop optimized for crazy performance on the mac?

Re:Simple economics

[Ubergrendle]

Where do you get your stats? I doubt your numbers, with the exception maybe of high-end print graphics/media.

Most 3d graphics are done on linux/solaris/sgi workstations/rendering farms. Most vector graphics are done on the PC, using Photoshop or some paired down software. For home digital video editing, I'd say the majority of home users use what they have available -- a WinTel PC.

As for professional DV creators, i ask you this: calculate the cost of a Mac with a 2+ ghz processor, a gig of ram, 120+gb of storage, a DVD burner, and a local RAID configuration. I'm willing to bet you could get the equivalent config on WinTel for 50% of the $ value, with the advantage of more easily accessible parts. Anyone i know in professional video editing these days have been WinTel in the past two years, justifying their transition from Mac to Intel by "Premiere works the same on both".

The stats for Final Cut Pro (which probably is a better program) having up to 80% of Mac install base should really say "80% of the users who stuck with Mac".