Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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?
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.
Taking the "A" from Adobe and the "pple" from Apple.
I agree completely. If Apple has access to the API as Cringley has stated in his past two articles, Apple in theory could enable OSX to launch WinXP apps inside a process similar to how it ran "Classic Mode" for OS9 apps. Imagine that, though - WinXP apps running inside OSX without XP itself running.
Given that Vista isn't due until '07, and most orgs are still running apps from the Win2k days, being able to run Win2k/XP apps w/in a more secure OS would certainly be an attractive offering.
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.
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
What do call a CEO who makes the decision to chop $400 million off his company's profits?
Carly Fiorina
Well... And unemployed.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
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).