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Cringely Posits Adobe's Purchase by Apple
An anonymous reader writes to mention another Robert Cringely piece discussing Apple's future. In his latest article, he lays out some goals for Apple on its quest to desktop dominance. An important link in this chain is Apple's purchase of Adobe Systems. From the article: "Adobe has already made one feint away from Mac development that required personal pressure from Steve Jobs on John Warnock to reverse. If Apple kinda-sorta embraces Windows enough for Adobe to question whether continued development for the native OS X platform is still warranted, well, then Apple WILL just become another Dell, which isn't what Steve Jobs wants. Steve wants Windows applications to run like crazy on his hybrid platform but to look like crap. In his heart of hearts, he'd still like to beat Microsoft on the merits, not just by leveraging some clever loophole. So he needs the top ISVs who are currently writing for OS X to continue writing for OS X, and that especially means Adobe."
Every article by Cringely, Dvorak, and the like needs to be instantly moderated '-1, Troll' with extreme prejudice. Too bad /. does not have article moderation.
Hey, could that [an Adobe acquisition] be why Apple is rumored to have this week just laid-off its entire Aperture development group?
Could be.
Yeah, and it could be that the product never lived up to expectations and saw little market adoption so Apple decided it was time to cut their losses and focus their resources on something else.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Steve wants Windows applications to run like crazy on his hybrid platform but to look like crap.
I have seen it and, well at least it does run like crazy...
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
What do call a CEO who makes the decision to chop $400 million off his company's profits?
Unemployed.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
I really hope that Apple doesn't do what Cringley suggests and even if they do that it is squashed by the state department responsible for mergers and acquisitions, since:
- Apple needs some healthy competition in this domain
- Even though I am a Mac user, having a competitor in the PC domain also helps Apple keep on their toes
- Adobe bought Macromedia, so in this field Apple would near a potential monopoly.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Well, it's up to Jobs to make sure of the former, but MS has already done what it can to accomplish that latter.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
It's starting to become a cliche for Dvorak or Cringely to postulate on possible future moves by Apple or Google, and the crazier their suggestions, the more internet posters get riled up, and the more traffic gets driven to their site. Do they really have to pander to the lowest among internet posters?
What do call a CEO who makes the decision to chop $400 million off his company's profits?
Although I agree with your sentiment, it's worth pointing out that $400M in revenue -- which would be sales figures -- does not translate into $400M in profit.
Unless of course you're engaging in a little Enron-style math, that is. Software companies may have high margins, but they're not 100%.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Breakfast served all day!
I think this is the first time Cringley is on to something. What he is onto isn't this Apple buying Adobe thing though. Its the following quote from the article stub:
Steve wants Windows applications to run like crazy on his hybrid platform but to look like crap. In his heart of hearts, he'd still like to beat Microsoft on the merits, not just by leveraging some clever loophole.
OS X running Windows apps in ugly gray, thats what he is onto. Its coming.
__
Elephant Essays - Cover Letters, Research Papers, Editing
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
When you and Dvorak are snuggled up in bed at night thinking up these crazy ideas how do you decide who gets which idea to write about the next day?
-Curious on Slashdot
Apple co-founded Adobe and owned part of Adobe.
This would be the perfect deal. And then the sweet "sorry, we're cancelling Photoshop for Windows since there is no demand for a PC version".
They have done that before too.
We live in interesting times. And I love it.
This is crap. Apple is not trying to dominate the desktop market. They are trying, and succeeding at producing very desirable products. Apple has carved out their boutique image carefully and they do NOT want to be another Dell. Apple is making alot of profit right now. They do not want to be the new Microsoft+Dell. Jobs would like his vision of the way OSs and computers "should be" to dominate, but he is not trying to position Apple to do this.
Taking the "A" from Adobe and the "pple" from Apple.
eh, what? seriously, i can barely make it past Apple on its quest to desktop dominance without laughing. dominance? even steve jobs can't be thinking that. if it's dominance they want, they need vaste changes. the peak of there success outside of iPod is a niche player that is secluded into the business world of being the art or marketing dept pc's. they are so far from desktop dominance that they are not even in the same country that the road to desktop dominance is in. I'm not going to read the article if that's a 'highlight', geez i feel like i'd know more about apple if i just got drunk and pounded my head on a wall.
Yeah, it actually is :)
... Cringley might actually have hit on something here. Right now, Microsoft holds the Office suite over Apple's head. Maybe this will give Apple something to hold on Microsoft. But there are a couple of things I can't imagine:
1) Apple hiring people to write software for Windows.
2) Adobe actually being willing to sell. Well, at least not without a fight.
I'm serious. Taco, you want us to invest in Slashdot's next-gen CSS look and feel but every time someone submits a Dvorak/Cringely Apple troll it can't get greenlighted fast enough?
We can't polish a turd, guys. If this site's supposed to be Fark Technica, just say so.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
/sarcasm
If Apple bought Adobe, then they'd effectively be pursuing a strategy similar to Microsoft's - trying to control all major app vendors for the respective OS. It'd be costly for one thing, and might discourage other vendors from building on the platform. Not a great idea, in my opinion. Apple probably wants all the developer mindshare that they can get, but doing this is more Borg-like than anything else.
1: That nobody reads Cringley until he's posted to Slashdot?
2: Everyone reads Cringley, and just wants a forum to spout off about it afterwards?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Apple's desktop market share is only 3.1%. That's lower than five years ago. Apple's "quest to desktop dominance" is not going anywhere.
If Adobe stock were converted to new Apple shares that properly reflect the increased value of Apple + Adobe, it would cost them the amount of printing the new certificates and mailing them, which is essentially nothing. That assumes a friendly takeover/merger.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
And you've read Steve Job's mind on this. That he'd rather have tiny market share than be the biggest PC retailer (remember Apple is a hardware vendor) in the world. Yeah, that's the Steve we know -- thinking small as usual.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Dear Apple:
Enclosed is a check for your next laptop offering OS X and Display PostScript...
Please fill in the required amount in the two blank areas of the check...
Thank you,
A Mac/NeXT/BSD Fan Forever
"News of a potential merger between these two rumor-mongering blowhards has been bouncing around San Jose for some time," said a source close to the deal. "After exhausting the n(n-1) array of potential merger rumors between companies as diverse as Google, Microsoft, General Motors, and ElectroPeru, the state-owned energy monopoly of Peru, both realized the only remaining avenue for generating baseless headlines and crucial name recognition was to themselves merge." Industry analysts speculated the new entity would assume the name Jobert K. Cringvorak, and continue publishing factually-inaccurate, worthless gossip headlines twice weekly in IT trade magazines.
Morons. Why does this shit get posted here every week, clogging up my screen real estate. I want to read about motherboards.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
This is why MacBookPro has a camera, guys, since Apple is about to buy eBay (which owns Skype).
And this is why Skype added video in the last versions. See how it all makes sense?
Cringely, my man, you're on the fast track turning into a "Dvorak".
Cringley never said he heard it anywhere else. He made it up.
It's a prediction, not a rumor, and his record with predictions is not bad.
Lemmings are silly; dinosaurs are extinct.
Okay, how about this? Turn off the slashdot moderation system, and then let every story gradually fill up with AC natalie portman/goatse/gnaa posts. After all, people can just scroll past those, right? Wait, you don't think that's such a good idea somehow?
Oh, never mind. I'm just going to just go write a Firefox plugin to call element.parentNode.removeChild(element) on any slashdot story containing the strings "Cringely" or "Dvorak".
Remember a while back when, (was it Suse), did the what apps would you most like to have on Linux. The majority of the apps were from Adobe and Macromedia. Apple has the best of both worlds right now. They have most of those apps and a *nix based OS.
:-)
If Adobe/Macromedia stopped making Apps for Apple, the 3.1% of the desktop market they have today would shrink even smaller. I never considered it, but Adobe/Macromedia continuing to support Apple is extremely important to selling Apple Computers.
From a business case standpoint, it may become very important for Apple to buy Adobe to continue selling Macs.
-- Now if we could only convince them buying Tivo was as critical to their business.
RTFG - Read The F#$%ing Google!
This isn't how transactions work in public financial markets. It would cost Apple BILLIONS of dollars in stock and cash and/or debt in some combination to acquire Adobe friendly takeover or not. Adobe is a publicly traded company beholden to its shareholders. The board has a LEGAL obligation to the shareholders. They can't just hand over the company to Apple and print new certificates even if for some INSANE reason they wanted to in the interest of a "friendly" merger.
The only way shareholders would approve a buyout is if it was at a significantly higher price than where Adobe currently trades (which as mentioned is $23.65 billion). Unless the fortunes of the overall stock market, or Adobe change dramatically, it will cost Apple a hell of a lot to acquire Adobe, friendly takeover or not.
Even in an all stock transaction, existing Apple shareholders would pay for the transaction, as the value of their shares would be heavily diluted (new shares would be issued, making each existing share worth less).
I am starting to see how the plan goes. Witness:
Apple buys Adobe.
Apple implements Windows API in Leopard.
Apple kills off OS X versions of Adobe products.
Apple fires OS X developers from Adobe (they can hang with the Aperture team).
Profit!
Is it just me, or is Cringley starting to enter Dvorak territory?
Look...so many people say Cringley is full of S**T, but where are all those people who said it would be a cold day in Hell when Apple moved to Intel chips? I seem to recall most of them saying if Apple tried it, it would cause the company to go into a tailspin.
All of those predictions so far don't seem to be holding up.
Apple buying Adobe? I don't think it's a matter of IF..but a matter of WHEN. Apple, financially is in better position now then any other time in their history (thanks to the IPOD). By buying Adobe they not only get Photoshop, but also Macromedia and by extension FLASH and Dreamweaver.
Buying Adobe makes sense, it gives them BIG leverage in the Windoze world to make things OS X happy.
hate having to write the same program 3 times for 3 different OSs. Or writing all this extra web code so that the site will run under the top 3 browsers.
It seems that all this extra work would drive up the cost of a piece of software too. Any thoughts on why it would/wouldn't?
A good number of people use Adobe tools, especially Acrobat, because they're cross platform. If Adobe were to ditch OS X as a platform, I'd be quite surprised if they didn't lose market share on Windows. It's kind of like IT companies selling round the clock support. Very few companies will ever /use/ the after-hours support, but they go with the companies that offer it to increase their options should they ever need it. Another good parallel is the Wendy's tripple patty hamburger. Few people order it, but a significant number of people go to Wendy's simply because they /could/ order it should they ever want to.
Adobe would cost about $25 billion, or so, with $4-5 billion in sales; Apple's cap is around $60 billion with about $20 billion in sales...... Apple can clearly afford it but it is not clear that Adobe is a key to the future, the future is probably more in the media center thingie......
Of all the things he has predicted has anything come of them? Hes just a trolling fanboy who just posts random facts so he will be slashdoted and that everyone will argue about him on Neowin, and the other technology sites. Damn right we need a Cringely section, I'm starting to think Apple may dislike his postings....
Yep. He's certainly content to make those tiny little "boutique" movies, and let big ol' Disney have the lion's share of the family movie market. That's our Steve -- I'm sure he would find it insulting if his movies made a lot of money.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I finally figure out how he comes up with these illogical predictions. Cringley is in insane!!! The first line says it all.
Over the past three weeks, we've laid out in this column
He uses WE to describe himself but he is the only one writing the articles. He obviously has multiple personality disorder. There is more than one person in there and apparently no one is home. Though, he could also think he is a Borg, but that too is equally insane.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Here's my take. Aperture wasn't doing well, and it was competing against Adobe's Lightroom. Apple, meanwhile, is anxious for Adobe CS3 to ship, which currently is scheduled for Q1 of 2007. But Apple wants it in time for Christmas sales. In their last quarterly report, Apple execs said that they're working with Adobe to accelerate the launch of CS3, if possible, and that the lack of Universal software from Adobe was holding back sales of the Intel Macs. So I think they made a deal. Maybe we'll see the CS3 launch advanced.
Makes more sense than a freaking acquisition.
Those 90% would then not be accustumed to OSX, so it would be a lot harder for apple to keep them next time they buy a computer. On the other hand, if they get fairly addicted to OSX, then supposing that they feel they need a desktop and a laptop, after getting one from apple, they might just get the other soon after as well.
isn't this the same guy that claimed apple was going dump os x for windows? if you're going to be a conspiracy theorist, shouldn't the pieces fit together?
maybe they are dumping aperature because they don't need an os x only program when they are switching to windows
"because Apple compete against Dell"
Huh? That is quite literally, the stupidest thing I've ever seen posted here. Ever.
You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about and this
"No, "in his heart of hearts", he doesn't really care about Microsoft"
Is justification for having you euthanized. Did you have some kind of serious head trauma or something?
Aperture 1.1 looks like it addresses all the major issues with 1.0 and is starting to collect far more positive reviews.
My guess is that a few contractors have been let go and other folks moved to other projects after helping with the product release and bug fixes. Aperture isn't going to be abandoned (go play with Lightroom Beta 2 if you want to see a crippled product).
Or if you believe in going with the simplest possible theory, Apple is not in fact abandoning a product not even six months old that has had a major well-received update just recently and in fact has just restructured the team.
Since Aperture is still being sold in the Apple store and the pages for the product are all still up, I know which theory I'd buy into!
If you must believe something a little more juicy, how about an attempt by Think Secret (or someone behind it) to discredit Apple?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The CB App. What's your 20?
Look, Cringeley's talking out of his ass. That's his job.
But I don't see why people here are pooh-poohing the idea of Apple buying Adobe so much. I mean, forgetting about what you want, and focusing on what is good for Apple.
There are two things that will really harm (if not kill) Apple: (1) no Office; (2) no Photoshop.
However, of the two, I say #2 is even more important for Apple...Apple's core market is still graphics, despite all the mainstream press they've been getting. Without Photoshop there effectively is no OS X.
Secondly, Apple bought Final Cut Pro from Macromedia, they acquired DVD Studio Pro from (who was it? some company that started with 'A'), they bought Logic. Are any of these pieces of software Apple's 'core' business? No, they aren't. I remember I was more than a little surprised to see Apple even acquire these pieces of software. Not only have they acquired them, they have redeveloped them into really nice apps. So clearly, part of their strategy is to provide extremely nice pro apps for their own OS.
One segment of pro apps they have avoided -- I am sure partially to not piss off Adobe -- is graphics. They lack a pro 3D app, and they lack a pro 2D app (though by working CoreImage into the OS, they have provided tools that programmers can use to recreate 75% of what Photoshop does easily). Further, Adobe controls the PDF format (which Apple uses fir display in their OS).
I dunno...I think Adobe would be a pretty much perfect fit for Apple. Other than Premiere (which sucks anyway), very little of their work seems to overlap, and then Apple would have a complete suite of pro apps guaranteed to run on OS X (and if they really wanted to be shitty, they could discontinue the Windows versions, and leave Microsoft high and dry).
I mean, if this became too much of a distraction for Apple, they could spin off a separate software company (a la FileMaker), but other than potential distractions, I fail to see how acquiring Adobe would be all that bad for Apple, and I can certainly see a lot of potential upside in the thought.
gameDB
Apple offers every Adobe shareholder X shares of the combined stock in Apple/Adobe, where X reflects a favorable valuation of Adobe stock relative to Apple. Cost -- basically zero (printing new share certificates as someone said).
No let's start the most outragous rumor posible. Like oh I don't know.... Steve is trying to disrupt the strangle hold Microsoft has on web standards (through Explorer)by buying Adobe and geting his hands on PDF and Flash and that also he is, in fact, planning on replacing the ActionScript language with AppleScript. But you know some people might actually buy that line of Sh** so lets not use it
Cringely in the same article goes on about Apple replacing Microsoft Office stating "In case Mac Office is withdrawn"??
If Cringely had done a minimum of research, he might remember that Apple and Microsoft just signed a new agreement to keep Office for Mac around for a minimum of 5 new years. He might also remember that Apple is supporting Microsofts new, open XML file formats.
Apple is not going to be so stupid as to let Mac users have to rely on reverse engineering MS Office file formats, when they per date have full access to those formats and hence Office documents.
My take is that Apple will not challenge MS office until ECMA has approved the proposed MS Office XML formats as an open standard and implemented them (at least) in the Windows version of Office. Then the ground is open for Apple to rewrite Office - Apple style, but use Microsoft's open XML file formats for data storage.
So no, there is absolutely NO point (for Apple) in challenging Microsoft on Office right now.
For governments though....
The future is in beta
last section of a Mac Observer article from December 2005 comes to a similar conclusion... http://www.macobserver.com/columns/devilsadvocate/ 2005/20051216.shtml
"Desktop market share numbers show resurgent Apple" - the headline of the article you linked to.
And you DO realize those numbers are sales figures, not install base, right?
Not to mention those numbers are convieninetly before Intel macs were avilaible that can dual-boot into Windows, or run Windows apps directly as he was noting. That's where the real growth curve comes in, which would increase Apples figures beyond the mere 43% grown in Mac sales they enjoyed last year (again, from your own article).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The overpriced hardware vendor buys the overpriced software vendor! Brilliant!
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
a cage match between Cringely vs Dvorak. Whoever win, we lose. So preferrly, it ends with a double KO. Then we don't have to read these nonsense every week.
Their shares aren't diluted if, while they hold the same number of shares, there are more shares total now in a larger and more valuable company. They own less, true, but of a proportionately more valuable entity (Apple + Adobe) overall. That should be a wash, unless Apple overpays for Adobe, in which case Apple management should be tossed out of the airplane with an anvil instead of a parachute.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This isn't a zero sum game. There isn't any perticular reason it would be impossible for the shareholders of Adobe to be bought out at a premium (Albiet in freshly created Apple shares), and for Apple's share price to remain the same dispite the increase in outstanding shares.
All that would be required for that to happen is for the market to percieve the value of Apple+Adobe as higher than the combined values of the two seperate companies.
...assuming, that is, they aren't the same person. Has anyone ever seen the two of them together?
If Cringely had done a minimum of research, he might remember that Apple and Microsoft just signed a new agreement to keep Office for Mac around for a minimum of 5 new years. He might also remember that Apple is supporting Microsofts new, open XML file formats.
I see. And you fully trust Microsoft to honor that agreement if it does not suit them?
Sure if there's no compelling reason not to they will honor it because they make a lot of money doing so. But if you'd looked over the Slashdot headlines you'd note that Microsoft has suddenly got a "lot more strategic" and "Bill is back in charge". If Microsoft feels like it they will dump Office for the Mac, agreement or no.
I would imagine he did remember about Apple supporting Open XML since that was a key point in his argument about how Apple could have an office suite that actually read more Word formats than the Official Microsoft word.
Apple is not going to be so stupid as to let Mac users have to rely on reverse engineering MS Office file formats, when they per date have full access to those formats and hence Office documents.
Sure Apple would not do that on purpose but they have to have a backup plan in case Microsoft goes wiggy.
My take is that Apple will not challenge MS office until ECMA has approved the proposed MS Office XML formats as an open standard and implemented them (at least) in the Windows version of Office. Then the ground is open for Apple to rewrite Office - Apple style, but use Microsoft's open XML file formats for data storage.
WHich is pretty much exactly what was said in the article. His argument relies on Open XML being an offical standard (and thus one Apple can support) along with documents being read and written in that format.
At the point Apple does that Microsoft will drop Office, just like they dropped IE. Which is why Apple has to be ready to move any time in case Microsoft decides to do something preemptivley.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... for many reasons, among them his awesome feats of wireless (part 1, part 2) but recently, he really seems to have gone off the deep end. Not as far as Dvorak, but he's getting there. Of course, only time will tell if he's right, but as for this week's column, I doubt Apple will buy Adobe, and I doubt MS Office will die anytime soon. Not only will it not be defeated, it'll still be available on Macs--natively.
There are many things I could say about this. Here's just one: if OpenOffice can't defeat MS Office when it's free and runs on Windows, how in the hell will Apple releasing it make it win? It's entirely possible that there are more OOo/Win users than there are Mac users, period, and it hasn't made a dent in MS' earnings yet.
Looking at a journal entry from last year, I can't see anything that has changed.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
First of all, how does this help classify and search the articles? It doesn't, if every third article is "evil" and "troll".
Secondly, please refresh your memory of what a "troll" is. Here is the official Slashdot definition. Just because you think an article or comment is wrong and stupid does not make it a "troll". A "troll" is purposeful malicious misdirection intended to lead the discussion astray. Just because you disagree with Cringely, Dvorak, et al (and think they are totally off the wall), it does not mean they are trolls. They may indeed be stupid, but they are not trolls. Any opinion presented constructively is not a troll, even if it is wrong.
As far as I am concerned, the "tagging beta" should filter out all the "troll", "stupid", "evil", "FUD", and other non-helpful tags, because they are not objective descriptions to classify the article, but only negative opinion (and I think we can all read and form our own opinions).
Zonk obviously knows Cringely is stupid from the "now-what-is-he-talking-about" Department listing. You've gotta ask yourself -- if they know he's incapable of producing anything but inane drivel, why do we still get articles like this on Slashdot?
Ok let's put it this way. Which would you rather be, the largest PC manufacturer with 1 billion annually in profit or the third or fourth largest manufacturer with 6 billion profit annually and the admiration of the media and the general public? I would choose the latter.
Markshare at the expense profit is bad business.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Their shares aren't diluted if, while they hold the same number of shares, there are more shares total now in a larger and more valuable company. They own less, true, but of a proportionately more valuable entity (Apple + Adobe) overall. That should be a wash, unless Apple overpays for Adobe, in which case Apple management should be tossed out of the airplane with an anvil instead of a parachute. There is no way Apple would be able to buy Adobe without it being dilutive to earnings. Apple only has a market cap of around $60 billion. I doubt they would get Adobe for less than $30 billion dollars. Now, Apple could use most of their $8 billion warchest, issue some long term debt, and do the remainder in stock, but the deal would still be dilutive.
You don't really think it's the same Dvorak, do you?
Purchasing Adobe is a tempting idea, but I'm not sure that it is a business Apple wants to be in -- I think it would take up too much of Apple's attention and resources to orchestrate and would impact their current momentum.
A much more likely scenario I see would be for Apple to increase the OS X market share in order to continue to attract software developers. However Apple won't do this with a wholesale licensing plan to all PC vendor, with Apple doing all the driver development as many are calling for. That would be a mess for Apple having to maintain all of the various drivers. It would impact OS X in a negative way.
Rather, Apple will selectively pick two or three PC maker-partners and licenses the OS X security chip technology to them with the caveat that the partner, Dell and Sony are the most likely, would handle their own drivers. That gives Apple three key things - 1) important new distribution channels, 2) a break from the "single vendor" fear that enterprise worries about, and 3) important validation and increased credibility as THE major leader in IT and PC technology.
Normally a hardware vendor would baulk at that, but right now Apple may have just enough traction to make it attractive to some PC makers. After all, Macs are currently own all top 5 spots on Amazon.com for most popular computers and 7 of the top 10 spots. Dell has already expressed interest in selling OS X on Dell hardware. Apple and Sony have a strong and recently renewed relationship.
A "Dell-flavored" or "Sony-flavored" OS X would not be movable to another system from another hardware maker, but that's good for the PC partner because it means that people buy complete systems and peripherals from the partner.
Apple obviously wants more market share -- enough to remain relevant, but I don't see them wanting to be any more than 10 or 12 percent. (Forester projects they will double in market share over the next year or two.) I believe Apple wants to continue to lead innovation, be profitable, and grab a comfortable piece of the Enterprise business to cement their long-term existence. But profit is more important to Apple than market share because profit drives R&D which drives innovation.
Andy Fastow, is that you?
If Apple bought Adobe at these prices it would be under pressure for a ton of reasons. First of all, it is TOO large an acquisition for them. It doesn't make sense financially. It would be incredible DILUTIVE to earnings. The share price would not remain the same. It would be under pressure because it would take Apple forever to earn back a decent return on their 30+ billion in capital that they invested in Adobe. Apple would either have to exhaust their cash, issue a ton of debt, or a ton of new stock (which does matter), or all of the above.
Purchasing Adobe would help Apple reclaim market share they lost in the 90's to Microsoft. One of Apple's core target markets has always been 'artists' (aka media professionals). In the 90's, if you were a media professional you had no choice you had to have a Mac, but since about 1999 either platform was a viable choice.
By purchasing Adobe, Apple would be taking another step towards reclaiming this market share. But the goal in reclaiming the media professional market isn't profit its mind share. It's not like media professionals make up a vast share of the market, so there isn't alot of money in this venture. Apple's real goal is to convince the consumer that if you want to be creative you have to have a Mac, and having all the media professionals on side certainly goes a long way in convincing the market of this.
link shows 3rd Q sales. Just supposing they are averaged over whole year, then sorry, I have to drag out the old saw that Apple hardware lasts longer, gets handed on, say 4 years average life against 3 years for a typical PC. Then the surviving user base is ~4%. Don't beleive me.
I know this will get troll'd, but seriously, Dvorak is a fucking idiot. He just makes this shit up.
Don't Crease the Weasel!
You seem to be under the impression that I'm arguing that this would happen. I'm mearly arguing that it could happen.
The rest of your points are arguable, but irrelevant to the line of conversation.
I can't think of any other area of news that is dominated by rumor and speculation the way tech news seems to be. Is there just not enough going on?
I heartily agree with you on this. Cringely and Dvorak have their own columns. If I wanted to read them, I'd have them bookmarked and I'd check periodically. I don't, and I don't, so please slashdot, let us filter.
. . . should indicate that a lot of us don't want to see articles like that on slashdot anymore.
The biggest problem with MS Office seen from Apple's perspective is not that Mac Office could disappear, but rather that Microsoft has spun a web of solutions and offerings around Office for Windows that they don't offer to their Mac Office customers. This is a problem that Apple cannot write themselves out of.
This is also the reason why it is virtually impossible to replace corporate or government solutions involving Win Office with an equivalent Mac Office solution - or an OpenOffice solution for that sake.
The only force that can help break this vicious circle is government forcing mandatory use of open standards in communication between government and the public.
The future is in beta
A 'tag' is nothing but a majority vote. That means a large percentage of the readers things Cringley's posts are trolling. If you don't like it, deal.
Tagging is about the benefit for the community, not for your personal benefit.
Just take a look here.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
More likely I could see Apple, buying a large portion of Adobe Stock. enough to be a controlling interest and have someone on the board perhaps, but not a total take over/merger.
Although if Apple did buy the whole package it would be interesting.
I can see your point about "troll", but strongly disagree about your other examples. In a story about SCO trying to scare Linux users, "fud" is perfectly reasonable - the story is about FUD, which is different than saying the story is FUD.
Similarly with Sony suing a 2-year-old and "evil", or people planning to power their homes with tree electricity and "stupid"; the tags refer to the stories' subject and not the stories themselves.
And finally, there are quite a few real troll stories around here. If the closing sentence is "Once again, Bush wants you to die", or "Microsoft probably sacrifices babies", then a "troll" tag is perfectly reasonable.
If all else fails, if you have tagging privileges then use them to vote against the ones you dislike. I've done it (successfully) several times.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
- Apple needs some healthy competition in this domain
Competition is a strong word. Other than Final Cut Pro, what does Apple offer that competes? Adobe has a monopoly on graphics software. There already is NO competition.
- Even though I am a Mac user, having a competitor in the PC domain also helps Apple keep on their toes
I don't think they would be any less on their toes if Adobe didn't exist. They'd probably love the room to innovate and make money. If they bought Adobe this would largely have the same effect. I can't imagine them screwing too much with Adobe's corporate structure since it's very ingrained and profitable.
- Adobe bought Macromedia, so in this field Apple would near a potential monopoly.
Again, Adobe already has the monopoly. What difference does it make to the market if you exchange the word Adobe for Apple? It's still a monopoly.
Apple's best bet at world domination would be to buy Adobe and stop making the Windows versions of the programs like they did with Logic. Then all the companies would buy Macs, perhaps run their current software through Boot Camb and then upgrade to the Apple versions at the next revision.
As much as I'd like to see a Mac-branded FrameMaker, I doubt Apple will buy Adobe outright. I wouldn't be too surprised to see them acquire a significant amount of Adobe stock, though, for leverage...
all those people who said it would be a cold day in Hell when Apple moved to Intel chips
Anybody who said that just hadn't been paying attention. The first Developer Preview of Mac OS X (Rhapsody) included an Intel version as well as a PowerPC version.
There are hundreds of references to byte-order compatibility issues all through the Apple API documentation and header files. They have even kept a version of Darwin for Intel PC's available all these years.
Okay, they never came out and publicly announced that they were switching to Intel until the work was mostly already done, but anybody who didn't see that a major architectural change was coming (eventually) was just blind.
There's a difference between the 10,000 comments Slashdot gets a day, and the 20 stories we post.
Oh, and make that Greasemonkey extension configurable, and I bet a lot of people will use it. Plenty of people have pet peeves. Make it scan the tag list and the topic icon too!
We were Adobe's Australian representatives and an Apple VAR for a while early on and I spent enough time at Adobe that I even had a temporary desk there at one point. The working relationship between Apple and Adobe at the time was as close as it gets.
The only other licensee that was talked about from the beginning was Linotype and, from memory, relatively obscure companies like DataProducts and QMS were next to market with PostScript printers. That is all a while before Adobe acquired PhotoShop. When we took them on, their only distribution product was typeface (font) packs, but internally developed Illustrator was on the horizon.
Apple sold their 20% a few years down the track quite publicly. That may have had something to do with Apple and M$ getting together on TrueType to undercut PostScript in certain sectors, but I wasn't as closely involved by then.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Graphics is no longer Apple's only "core market". The purchase of NeXt has brought a lot of Unix fans into the fold. So you have the artists and designers of Classic vintage as well as a whole generation of people that don't feel like writing a batch file full of gotos when they want to shell script on desktop box. Apple's niche is a huge swath of the most influential members of the information tech community. Photoshop isn't going anywhere, and niether are the masses of new converts Apple is gaining each month for a variety of other reasons. They don't need to buy Adobe for this to be the case.
This whole "wants to be the biggest" thing is beyond me, unless it has something to do with Freudian hangups on the part of the commentators. Get over it.
Mods on LSD. That's not insightful, and it's not even particularly funny if you have any idea what the term 'the editorial we' means.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Meus subcriptio est somnium. Mea. Subscriptio is an abstract feminine.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
-It was the audio program, Reason or somesuch. The sales numbers weren't that big, but they did it. There was a PC and Mac version, Apple bought the company and killed the PC version..... -just because. There were more PC than MAc users, IIRC.
I would expect that if Apple bought Adobe, that Apple would kill the PC versions; Apple simply has no reason to create any Windows software--except for software that helps you move all your personal files on your PC to your brand-new Mac.
But then, a lot of users would be fantastically pissed at Apple and recognize them as the fuck-jobs they are.
Also, there would likely soon be a Windows port of Skencil, and a lot of work thrown into WinGIMP (which could well use it--maybe even a Win port in C/++).
Apple can do an amazing amount for the Windows FOSS community--mostly by buying up big-name Windows software companies and killing off the Windows versions of the products.
~
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060427. html is the Public Broadcasting Service, a completely diferent organization then Infoworld or National Public Radio.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I thought that Macromedia had already bought Adobe. Surely they're not letting it go. Either me or everyone else is A. Confused. B. Misinformed. I dunno. I'm ready to accept either hypothesis on both sides of the equation.
Interesting figures, but opposite to reality.
/ 07/daily51.html
s .html
According to
http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2005/02
Dell's 2005 profit was $3.3 billion. Or roughly $1B per quarter, the figure you're probably thinking of.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/oct/11result
Apple's 2005 profit was $1.3 billion.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
and cringely is an idiot for seriously suggesting it, but if it did happen, it would be *totally* *sweet*.
Adobe sucks balls at supporting the mac, which confuses me greatly, seeing as pretty much every person who I know that uses photoshop, uses it on the mac. It's the same software package on windows or mac, but for some reason, all the photographers I know *shudder* at the idea of running it on a PC, and buy their macs for the *sole purpose* of running photoshop on them. Maybe there's some additional graphics software, or drivers, that's only available on the mac... but it seems strange to me.
Adobe has been guilty *twice* now, of utterly botching a mac platform shift. First from os9 to osx, which wasn't so bad because you could just reboot from os9 to osx... and now from ppc to x86, which *is* really bad because you just can't run their software at a practical speed on the latest hardware. Both times they've blamed their problems on apple... this time because apple's IDE, xcode, "wasn't ready for prime time," so they chose to continue using the discontinued metrowerks compiler codewarrior, which will never support x86 mac compilation. When they make this excuse, the don't mention that there's absolutely *nothing* compelling them to use xcode to compile their stuff on gcc...
Its clear that Adobe doesn't know what's in their own best interest. I don't know if I'd want *apple* running adobe, but you'd think that some shakeups in management would happen after mistakes like these were made. If Adobe actually *had* a real competitor, they'd have eaten them alive in the mac market by now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openstep
The thing that peeves me a bit about the article is that he quotes me verbatim and paraphrases for other parts without any attribution. Compare my original email I sent him the night before to his article, and spot the similarities. My email's a bit long and relates to what Apple's plans might be to circumvent Microsoft's Office dominance and fill the gaping gap in their iLife strategy, a decent Office package, without losing a lot of users when Microsoft inevitably retaliates by pulling MS Office. The part about Adobe is in there too, although I didn't say they have to buy Adobe outright now, only controlling interest if Adobe ever threatens to pull killer apps like Photoshop:
"Apple is beholden to two software companies above all: Microsoft and Adobe. Microsoft they may be able to get around, but not Adobe. If Apple loses Photoshop, they lose the CS and MX suite (now Adobe owns Macromedia), and they lose the publishing market (not necessarily in that order), one of their mainstay niche markets that have kept them alive all these years. It's a killer app they must have. Their only alternative would be to buy a majority stake in Adobe to force a native version of the CS suite."
The least he could have done is acknowledge his source.
Martin Andersen
I've been in Graphics for nye on 10 years now, and have heard a myriad of arguments for MACs and PCs. Ever since more software has been available for PCs, there have been constant rumors about a switch from MACs to PCs, and yet it never comes. Personally, I have both at my work station for a variety of reasons, but I have a PC at home. Why? Cheaper...that's the simple answer. I can upgrade or repair my PC with little hassle, for less. I find it funny that most MAC users in my department are rushing to Windows Bootcamp in the anticipation of new MACs with Windows XP. For me it's the fundamental difference between the two camps. MAC users are fiercely loyal and look at their MAC like it's an easel and paintbrush. PC users treat their machines more like a tool in the toolbox. I see little difference in the performance of Adobe products on either platform, and have suites on both my machines and my home PC. Besides, didn't Microsoft invest in MAC a few years ago because they stood more to lose with MAC gone?
It's always amusing to post a story that reveals something negative about Apple and watch the Apple fanatics mod it down. It consistently takes about four hours.
Okay, I'll suggest uage of the tag "about:troll" to designate articles which are about trolls, but are not, in and of themselves, trolls...
Anyone? Methinks the tag's "syntax" would make it easily memorable. All we have to know now is if a colon can be part of a tag...
I presume something went both ways... PostScript ROMs to Germany for the L100 & L300, and typeface outlines back to Adobe for incorporation in those same ROMs. :-) AFAIK, Adobe still licenses a good chunk of their type library from Linotype.
you had me at #!
I sort of think Cringely has a point here, and I'm one of his biggest detractors. (see my blog for my anti-cringely record.) Remember Apple bought a prototype application from Macromedia a while back? It was called Final Cut Pro and they killed the Windows version completely. Then they bought a very popular music app called Logic. Killed the windows version dead. If Apple buy a major player like Adobe, make OS X capable of running Windows apps embedded and kill the windows versions of Photoshop, Premiere, etc, what does this do to Microsoft in a media rich world? It leaves them alienated and in serious trouble, that's what. I reckon if the rumours that Apple are going to embed some sort of Windows compatibility layer (like "red box" or WINE or whatever) are taking off like they are, you can bet Apple has at least some sort of strategy involving making windows apps run native in Mac OS, but without the OS2 effect. Remember, when IBM created OS2, they were playing PC catchup. They were learning the game ages after Microsoft and Apple already had learned it. Apple, if they go Doze compatible, it'll be with a market dominant strategy, and buying Adobe could well be part of that market domination plan. We'll see. We'll see.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
Hey, could that [an Adobe acquisition] be why Apple is rumored to have this week just laid-off its entire Aperture development group?
Could be.
Yeah, and it could be that the product never lived up to expectations and saw little market adoption so Apple decided it was time to cut their losses and focus their resources on something else.
I don't know, though I haven't used Aperture myself or know anyone irl who has, much of what I've read photographers at Photo.net have to say is neutral or positive. Most of the comments I read about Aperture that may be considered negative is the recommended machine requirements, in at least one case the complaint being that it doesn't run on PCs. Others say it's "definitely still pre-release", that it was released too soon and should be in beta testing still, not that it's bad for what it's supposed to do.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It is likely that MS will update VPC for the new Intel Macs. When they do, the performance hit will be very small, since the processor emulation is what slows down VPC on the PPC Macs. MS will sell many copies of Windows for those who MUST run some Windows only software.
I hope VPC runs faster on Mactels. I plan on getting one of the new MacBook Pros in about two weeks and wanted to get VPC to run Win2K, I don't like MS's new policy of activation with XP. However VPC is too slow for most windows apps. I'm wondering if MS has VPC for Mactels now though. Also now that Boot Camp is out I wonder if you can install 2000 instead of XP.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yea but will WinXP emulation ala Rosetta be able to emulate all my viruses properly?
or else!
What next ?
OSDL buys out Microsoft ?
IBM buys out Oracle ?
Google buys out the UK ?
oh pleeeeeze....
Would Apple create a market for ebooks on an IPod like device if Adobe is added into the company? They have a history of innovating in the music market and Adobe knows the ins and outs of documents. The .PDF document format is so trusted that even libraries use it as a standard. The print ebook market, which has been flat after initial hype could be a winner down the road. The publishing industry *might* embrace a secure system such as itunes for books in electronic format. Anyways, this is just my two cent thought...