Microsoft Pauses Work on 'Photoshop Killer'

daria42 writes "According to this article, Microsoft has paused development work on some parts of the pro graphics application it first released in beta back in June 2005. The problem? It appears the software giant doesn't see the application as a stand-alone product, but more of a companion piece to its Expression product line. Plus Vista needs to be released first."

Comments

The Cliché of "Killer"

[eldavojohn]

Ok, so I'm a little tired of headlines like these:

Microsoft Pauses Work on 'Photoshop Killer'

The Latest iPod Assassination Attempt

Sony's Revolution Killer?

Microsoft's Sparkle a Flash Killer?

Microsoft to Launch "Skype Killer"

StarOffice 8 May Be MS Office Killer

And the list goes on.

So where does that leave the readers? I'm pretty sick and tired of hearing the word 'killer' used to describe a new product that aims to (hopefully) usurp the leading product in the market. That's it! Let's start using the word 'usurper' over and over to describe a product. It's hip, it generates hype, run with it!

I'm fine with having my intelligence insulted when I read the comments. Hell, I'd even be fine with having low brow advertising on /.'s frontpage. What I'm not fine with is the editors being stupid enough to use clichés such as "killer" over and over and over again. Is this the 80's? Do we find one word and use it to describe everything? Did Roblimo just turn into Jeff Spicoli? Is anyone really naïve enough to think that an application will come along and "kill" Photoshop? For christ's sake, I use the Gimp 2.0 and I personally like it better than photoshop. On top of that, it's free. I alerted my band member to this application when he was making posters for a show. Now, he didn't pay for his version of photoshop but he still laughed when I suggested the Gimp 2.0 because he was too ignorant to try something new. I think you'll find this in a lot of graphical artists that if they have something that works (i.e. Macs, Photoshop, Intuos, etc.), they will stick with it until they die regardless of anything else that comes out. It's because that consumer base has a fatalistic attitude that different means worse.

To add to the guessworking

[Opportunist]

My guess in the whole deal is that they've been working on it, saw that it can't hold a candle to Photoshop and to the fact that Adobe pretty much sets the standard for DTP in Windows, so the whole deal will be revamped as an additional goodie in the Office suite.

That way, some kinda graphics program is already on your machine when you have Office (and what office doesn't?), it's another thing that you can hand to marketing in an attempt to make OpenOffice look worse, and in a generation or two, they might start to create some "professional" or "enterprize" standalone version when they hit Adobe's market hard enough, when people got used to their "standard".

MS isn't in a hurry. Taking over a market someone else claimed takes time, and time is what they have plenty of.

Re:Editorial slant

[gutnor]

It seems the product do not even aim at being a photoshop-like application. Maybe this has changed since the beta, but the main purpose was vectorial graphism.

Microsoft is not even talking on its website about anything that could position it against Photoshop.
Just see by yourself

http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/gr aphic_designer/gd_features.aspx
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/overview.h tml

When you tried to 'kill' another product, you generally start to match its features, in this case, both feature list have almost nothing in common.

For me that doesn't make more sense that saying Adobe Illustrator is a Photoshop killer.

BTW, this has already been discussed:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/11/185123 1

expression

[Anonymous Coward]

Expression, formerly of creature house, was bought by microsoft a few years ago, company included. It is one of the most innovative packages around. I tracked the tragectory of this technology ever since its first debut at siggraph. Combining deep math and artist sensibility it married vector and bitmaped graphics in truly amazing ways. The key metaphor is that of a brush. Any image can become a brush-stroke, which can make new images which can become further brush strokes. It is extremely intuitive, especially to artists.

My biggest worry is that microsoft might suck the soul out of this truly innovative product. It is light-years ahead of any painting program (Which is why MS had to buy it, because to allow it to be independent might mean that its own paint programs might have been out compete, however unlikely, snce it did not have a major distributer around the time it was bought out by MS.) especially if it is used in the right context.

calling it photoshop-killer or positioning it against photoshop is not really the right strategy. Photoshop's core metaphor is that of a photo, so photoshop is especially deft at after effects applied to a photo or the compositing of existing photos. (I'm sure there are people who break the metaphor and create masterpiece digital paintings from photoshop, but nonetheless, original graphics is not photoshop's main domain.) Expression gives you canvas, paint, and a magical brush.

Time will tell what will happen to this product, here's hoping that it doesn't die at microsoft's hands.

Why Why Why Why?

[jacks smirking reven]

I myself am usually a pretty good defender of Microsoft as i find Windows to do everything i need with a bit of tweaking, but this is what bothers me most about them..... They seem to be trying to be all things to all people and losing focus on their prime objectives. As we hear about Microsofts AV software, Graphics software, Google threats, etc etc we hear about features that keep getting sliced out of Vista to the point that its beginning to sound like XP SP3. IMHO they need to focus on a solid, secure OS core that will run this type of software in a stable, usable environment and let companies like Adobe and Macromedia (oops, one in the same now!) worry about specialized programs like this.