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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.
Yeah, it actually is :)
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.
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."
"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.
FTA: The biggest winner: Apple, which gained nearly a full percentage point in market share after reporting a 43% increase in unit shipments. The full PC Review: January 2006 report is available from IDC.
It may be lower than 5 years ago, but the future is looking quite good...
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.
"1) Apple hiring people to write software for Windows."
That has already happened, which is why you have iTunes and QuickTime for Windows.
"2) Adobe actually being willing to sell. Well, at least not without a fight."
Why wouldn't they? They're close to Apple, the corporate culture appears to be very similar, and Apple just announce major plans for a 50 acre, $700 million expansion. Why do you suppose they need all that extra space? Their business has tripled in the last five years but it certainly appears as if they have a big need to add thousands of new employees.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
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?
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......
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.
If it was targetted to a "Virtual Machine" that ran under these three operating systems, then it wouldn't necessarily incur any additional cost to develop...
Someone should really build something like that...
Sig withheld to protect the innocent.
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
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
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
If you drive around Cupertino, you will see that Apple is renting a massive amount of office space for their workers because they can't fit everyone at Infinite Loop. Most of the new space Apple is buying will be for their existing people, not because they need to fit in a new group of people after a merger.
If anything, Apple announcing the new campus points AGAINST Apple buying adobe. If Apple bought Adobe, Apple would also have access to Adobe's "not nearly full" campus and could house the excess Apple employees there, instead of blowing $700 Mil on the expansion.
"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.
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
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).
So what? Their actual installed base is much much higher than five years ago. When the market itself is growing, you don't need to take the whole pie to grow. Sheesh.
Besides, Apple's goal is not to dominate the desktop.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
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.
Who is to say that is their goal? I thought the main goal of most companies is to be profitable and to grow their sales numbers and Apple has done both. Their percentage of the market has dropped because the overall market grew faster than their sales numbers growth. You make the common mistake to assume that an increase or decrease in marketshared percentage is directly related to an increase or decrease in sales numbers.
It is perfectly possible for a company to gain marketshare percentage but see a decrease in sales number year over year if the overall market shrinks. The inverse is also possible if the market grows faster than the growth of the company.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
. . . should indicate that a lot of us don't want to see articles like that on slashdot anymore.
Uh, yeah...but we're talking about Cringley, right?
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
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.
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?
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.
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.