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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."
I guess when you are used to being the only bully on the block, and have thus come to enjoy forcing people to pay your extremely high prices (since there isn't anywhere else to go), then you would react in such a non-sensical way to sudden competition. First post?
It's similar to Microsoft's excuse for dropping IE for Mac. If you don't want to support Mac, then just don't support it. Don't blame it on competition when your product has been superior for years and recognized as such. If it's not selling well, reduce the price to sell more. If the Apple market is just too small, say so.
Why can no one compete with Apple? Simple. Because, in general, Apple makes software that just works and is a joy to use, unlike Microsoft.
Adobe Premier: $546
Apple Final Cut Pro: $999
I'd think Adobe would still hold a large share of the market based on price alone.
It's normally Microsoft that is derided (sp?) for bundling apps with their OS.
However I guess with Apple being the manufacture of machine you could argue that the rules are slightly different. I suppose they are trying to sell the Mac as an "Experience", ie buy a Mac no need to buy extra software everything works out of the box.
This is very true. I have a copy of Premiere 5.0 and it does EVERYTHING that premiere 6.0 and 6.5 and the upcoming 7.0 will do. I added DV support with my pinnacle dv500 card, and pinnacle gave me free titling tools that makes premiere's in 6.5 look like a complete joke. My really old aftereffects does the job well... Hell I can do the "gee wiz" and trendy effects everyone else is doing on my old crud and do it much faster than them.
Adobe has gave me no reason to drop big $$$ to get a minor upgrade.
Avid DV express and final cut are both superior products and cost less (avid DV express LE is FREE) while doing more.
Adobe's ONLY hold right now is photoshop.. and photoshop 4 is still very VERY useable....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
Wrong. Adobe gets 30% of their revenues from the mac market. look it up.
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
Which developers. I would say only the ignorant.
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. You are cookoo for cocoa puffs. At least you did not say Gimp == Photoshop...
Microsoft drops Mac IE development as Safari reaches 1.0
Of course, anyone who wants to develop Office-like business software or any kind of web browser for Windows faces the same uphill battle. When the OS manufacturer makes non-OS software, they enjoy unparalleled integration with the rest of the system and anyone else comes in four to six months behind the development curve.
It's sad that third parties stop developing Mac software because Apple's doing it better, but it's no more fatal -- to businesses or to consumers -- than it has been on Windows. When Microsoft took over the Windows office software market, developers either died or moved onto a different software niche. Same happens on Mac OS. Such is business.
The comment on the article you linked suffers from a logical fallacy of false equivalence.
Apple has a 3% market share (it's actually closer to 8% total installed base, but for the sake of argument...) of all computers in existence.
Adobe does not sell Premier to all computers in existence. They sell to the video editing industry. In this industry, Apple has about a 70% market share.
So, obviously, market share is NOT the reason Adobe is dropping Mac support. The truth is, they can't compete with Final Cut Pro, so they've dropped their support for that platform and are concentrating on the minority platform where they still maintain the monopoly. If FCP were ever ported to Windows, Premiere would pretty much cease to exist as a product.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
>I think that we're seeing a disturbing trend. Although I do love Final Cut, I simply can't justify >spending the money on a Mac when I could get equal performance on an x86 platform for less.
Hello? If you think rendering time if the only benchmark and not the hands down award winning-est software interface and work flow of Final Cut itself then....bah.
P.S. rendering was Final Cut on a G4 will beat the p4 and rendering time on the 64bit G5 will simply own market for the next few years.
You should look into a G5. If you are making money with your computer doing things like editing then $2000-$3000 is a small price to pay to let you finish jobs faster and easier.
video editing for 3D and animation classes. But now Final Cut Pro is the default standard for film schools and most animation courses. The thing is, Adode has seriously lagged the last couple of releases with Premiere. Adobe had a lead for a long time and simply let the advantage go. Nothing remains constant and innovation requires a sense of pressure and urgency. It looks like Adobe didn't have a sense of urgency until it was too late.
All Adobe is saying is "we're not going to compete in a market where we'll be soundly trounced."
By the way, Acrobat sucks pretty bad on OS X. Most people use Preview instead of Reader. Creation of pdf files is as easy as hitting "Print", then "Save as PDF", which takes away much of the need for the full version of Acrobat.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Guess it must be a deeply entrenched culture of PHB'ness at Adobe then because I've heard these same type of comments from large scale users and developers since the days of Photoshop 3. Adobe really has some great coders and great products but the whole corporate culture just sucks majorly. Ultimitly if you piss off your developers AND your customers you are in for a rude awakening.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
What I don't get is why it is that when this came up, and when the whole IE thing came up, people seem to occationally somehow think it's harder to compete against Apple than against a different third-party.
Why?
I don't see what Apple's advantage is. All of their apps have gone through public, well-documented (okay, and in some cases not-so-well-documented, but they're working on that) APIs; there's nothing hidden. There have even been a couple cases where widgets and classes used in iApps have been later migrated into the main Cocoa API (like the itunes search system or "that switcher thing") because apple thought they might be useful to developers. The only real advantage Apple's had is that they've taken advantage of new APIs immediately, whereas other companies don't like saying "you have to upgrade to Panther to use this app". I went to the WWDC, and it really seems like Apple hasn't done anything anyone could have done; in fact, they actually had one session where they used Safari as a case study, showing how they used performance testing tools in making Safari so other people could do the same.
Don't say it's because Apple can use the money from their OS/computer business to unfairly finance other things; Apple is clearly understaffed and Adobe probably has more loose change than Apple. And I seriously doubt it's becuase of the expertise and access to engineers that comes from being in the same building as the Quicktime engineers. If Adobe's support contract didn't give it roughly the same degree of access, they would be able to bitch and moan about that specific problem and there would be a big community backlash.. there's worry already about apple's new presence in the applications area and a perception that apple is giving its own engineers preferential treatment could hurt them kind of badly.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
What I don't understand is how this happens when it seems clear to me that people have learned to compete with Microsoft...
Oh yeah, those third party office suites are raking in the bucks.
With a very few notable exceptions (Quicken comes to mind) third party software that is flourishing on the Windows Platform is there because it fills a niche that Microsoft hasn't specifically targeted (yet).
Ok, ok, hear me out!
PS kicks every other Pixelprogramm up and down the street. I get that.
But what with the rest? We've got Cinelerra for free (beer, speech and all), we've got Pinnacle who recently bought Fast, a kick ass high end Video Tool company and are now shedding their technology in bundles in every Walmart alongside realtime NLE cards for a dime-a-dozen.
And we got Apple who's new Final Cut Pro apears to be kicking the living crap out of Premiere. So I heard from my former Video NLE Teacher the other day who'd wee-wee in his pants whilst raving about the superdooper Premiere just 3 years ago when he tought us.
From what it looks like to me with every software company in the vector/pixel, video and 3D business struggling for life and the cheap ones getting cheaper or even being bought by hardware vendors and Gimp pushing the GPL-freeness envelope on the Pixelside and Sodipodi giving Freehand, Illustrator and CorelDraw the GPL creeps, it seems these companys like Macromedia *and* Adobe aswell would be better of finding new fields of business *fast*.
Just my 2 Eurocents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Um, Adobe's not leaving and taking the only video editing app with them. Adobe is leaving because they are no longer the only game in town.
And what do Blender and POVray have to do with anything?
In the Microsoft anti-trust trial, it was ruled that Apple should not be considered competition to Microsoft.
Therefore, Apple and Microsoft are not competitors, and therefore, they are in seperate market spaces.
Therefore, Apple has it's own market. By definition, the market MS is in (amoung others) is "Desktop Operating Systems for x86 compatible hardware".
The question then becomes, is Apple a *monopoly*. On the face, a ridiculous question. But in depth, it's not. Apple is the exclusive maker now of hardware able to run Mac OS. Therefore, they maintain a hardware monopoly in relation to what can run Mac OS X.
The question is this: in relation to the ISV (independent software vendors) does Apple maintain monopoly control? This isn't the first software package killed by Apple's bundling: Internet Explorer, Roxio stuff, and now Adobe stuff.
At some point its not inconveivable that Apple could be the target of a Sherman related case. They are the exclusive makers of Mac OS X compatible hardware, and they bundle it with software, at the expense of smaller software companies (or in cases larger). It is entirely possible that Apple could face a charge of anti-competitive bundling much like MS did.
Speculation yes, but it is starting to get obvious that Apple is killing ISV's via their use of bundling.
I know it's a pretty narrow market, but Illustrator still whoops ass all over Freehand. And as a long-time Quark user, every update of InDesign get's me contemplating how much easier life would be if I bit the bullet and switched.
Adobe's problem isn't that Apple strongarmed them out of the video market. Adobe's problem is that the Apple product just kicked theirs all over the school yard. Good riddance to an inferior product.
You know what?
Um, no. If you follow the API (which apple does not even do all the time) then there is no reason why your app should not work. There are plenty of apps that ran on MacOS 6 (I did not say usefull apps) that will still work under classic on MacOS X but only the ones that followed the rules. (Mac Paint is one, but I have not tried it under X yet). Developers get into trouble when they use api calls to things that they sholud not. The difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Apple is willing to remove or change depricated and non public functions and objects where as Microsoft keeps just about everything (16bit api comes to mind) regardless of how many gigs the os takes up. I imagin many of these developers of broken apps poked around in MacsBug (or some dev site/book) and found some really cool function that would do what they wanted but did not RTFM to see that it was unsupported. One day, Apple desided to change what they thought was a private function and blam, 3rd party app died. Who's fault is this I ask you?
Now if you are really worried about apple changing the api under your feet, you could always use a 3rd party api like QT or Java, just don't use the functions taged as "DEPRICATED" (or the like).
Yep - in a nutshell that comment PERFECTLY describes the situation.
The only thing I would add is that Adobe is under attack in Windows-Land also. With products like the awesome Vegas Video out there who can blame them for not wanting to fight a two front war?
Perhaps they should think about porting to Linux. What serious competition would they have there? If you could tell video production houses that they could save some bucks on licensing, and sweeten it by selling the open source concept, I think Adobe would have a winner (and a leg up).
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
You hit the nail on the head about Photoshop 4. Image Ready? Please. Export, gif; save as jpeg. Image slicing? Select tools work perfectly for that, and besides, image slicing is crap. More images = more downloads slowing overall performance. Sure there are uses for it, but it isn't worth $1.
With all the focus Dreamworks is receiving fo rendering *Sinbad* completely with Linux systems, I must ask why you haven't ported your entire product line for the Linux market? Windows is in decline. Perhaps if you would continue supporting OSX your programmers would improve their skills enough to hack it in the post-Windows era of user-friendly Unix deriviative operating systems... Otherwise, your company is going to be the next Digital Research, Ashton-Tate, Borland, or WordPerfect Inc. Seems to me, its only a matter of time before you get "Gimp*ed."
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
A similar article here. Bottomline, after reading the 2 articles: Adobe is very sensitive about direct competition from Apple. Adobe also fears that Apple might one day start giving away Pro applications for free, which is not entirely impossible because Apple is still mainly a hardware manufacturer. What, about 75% revenue from hardware sales?
Another reason stated in the article on Digital Video Editing is:
This announcement seems to follow a consistent trend at Adobe: none of the applications in the digital video editing segment get an OS X version Encore DVD, Audition, now Premiere gets the axe, when will After Effects get the boot?
"It usualy starts with some screaming. Afterwards there is much running around."
Apple left third parties to their own vices for many many years and the market dried up, became uncompetitive and utterly boring. Apple took matters into their own hands by improving and innovating. It's not their fault Adobe is a company of cowards who refuse to compete in a fair market. Apple's API's are open and they provide all the tools needed to get the job done for free.
The only reason Adobe pulled out was spite and cowardice. You can probably blame arrogance too with Adobe thinking they own the multimedia market.
Apple hardly shot themselves in the foot. They released a better product and took over the market. That's what happens in a free society. Adobe shot themselves in the foot by showing their customers and their investors they have no spine, and perhaps worse, no ideas.
Given the apple integrated approach to OS10+ your statement might just be a little premature
If Apple does succeed in integrating Gimp functionality into a desktop, then the average PhotoShop pro might just say hey why the hell should I pay big money for a 64 bit pentium work station, then tons of cash for software as well.
Adobe dropping Apple is a move that is obvious in it's implications. To keep Redmond happy! The free software movement is gaining steam with the pro's.
In music, imaging, etc. The home market for PC junkies has become more important to Adobe. Pro's will pay for great tools like ProTools audio, but Photoshop Pro has become a bloated button ridden overpriced PC style app, great as it was it is not that indespensable.
I do not even own an Apple, but I am getting very tempted!
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Final Cut Pro is the Premier-killer application and it's been pillaging Premier for some time. It's gotten to the point that Apple has released FCP 4 but Adobe still doesn't have a reply to FCP 3. Remember, FCP has been taking the pro market by storm even at twice what Premier costs. With Final Cut Express undercutting Premier's price, Adobe has decided to take their ball and run home before Apple shuts them out entirely.
I mean, even Avid is restructuring their marketing strategy and slashing prices because of the heat they're feeling from Final Cut Pro. What's a long-in-the-tooth, klunky program like Premier to do in the face of this competition?
From what I understand, Premier is not really competitive on the PC side, either, with several programs having more features and better interface. The PC market is larger and more fragmented, though, so they it's more economical for them and less embarrassing. (I.e., on the Mac side, a single opponent came from nowhere, kicked sand in their face, took their girlfriend, and has been voted "Most eligible Editor on the beach".
All of the video editors I know hate Premier, which is so primitive and klunky. I mean, this is the 2000's and it can still only have a single timeline per project file?
As far as I can tell, Premier's user base is: 1) people who have been using it forever, 2) novices who recognize the brand name and have read over the years about Premier, or 3) those who got it free with a bundled purchase.
There is a serious flaw in your reasoning, Final Cut doesn't even use the standard widgets. Apple bought Final Cut and ported it over, custome widgets and all. Premire should have had, for all intents and purposes the "head start" thanks to Carbon.
Because the OS maker has a few months head start shouldn't be a deterent to building a better mouse trap. Microsoft has had 20 years to build windows, that hasn't stopped OSS from trying has it?
Fact of the matter is, Final Cut is just better. Apple isn't bundling it, they aren't giving special breaks or sneaking in special API's. They aren't even competing on price, yet Premier STILL can't beat it. That alone speaks volumes about Adobe. I haven't seen such blatant incompentence since Quark waited 3 years to release an OSX native app.
"We like the Mac, but Apple currently has three [video] editing applications shipping.... It just didn't make sense for us to keep developing for the Mac when the Mac is well served by Apple." here
Translation:
Adobe Premier is Mickey Mouse BS when compared to FCP - we just could not compete. It is a good thing FCP is not available for Windows - we still have those Users under our finger.
Prediction:
If Adobe does not kick it into high gear and start making some changes (start with the interface which looks like it was designed by a focus group comprised of accountants, librarians, and lawyers) they will end up losing a good amount of their After Effects customers to Discreet' Combestion. Combustion rapes AE - hands down.
The upcoming AE 6.0 is heralded as:
"After Effects 6.0 Professional adds motion tracking and stabilization, advanced keying and warping tools, more than 30 additional visual effects, a particle system, render automation and network rendering, 16-bit-per-channel color, 3D channel effects, and additional audio effects."
Combustion had these 'new' features in late 2001 - only difference is that then it costs 4,995 and now you can get it for $995 - bye bye AE. Only advantage that AE has is all the plugins that are now being written to be combustion 2 compatible. Combustion 2.1 is available for OS X and Windows XP.
Hey - but they will still have Photoshop, right?
Still, Adobe Premiere was revolutionary in its day. I did some good work with Premiere on a 20MHz Mac IIci in 1995. Sure, it was slow, and I had to take the files to an Avid shop for final output, but it did the job.
But that was a long time ago.
That doesn't make any sense - if 80% (plucked number) of users of your product use the MacOS version, why does it matter that there are 15X as many Windows PCs in the world? There are probably more ATMs in the world that Palm OS computers, doesn't make it sensible to write a calorie counting app for ATMs, does it?
That was classic intercourse!
By your theory, Adobe should write Chinese version only and cease their English version development.