Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft / Adobe Competition Heating Up
MicroAdobe writes "Microsoft has noticed that some of the coolest sites on the Web, YouTube and MySpace included, get much of their flash from Flash and other design programs sold by Adobe. But as Microsoft gets ready to ship its own line of tools for designers and Web developers, the company is finding it must also defend against Adobe on its home turf, the desktop. At the same time, the line between Internet and desktop programs is blurring, and both companies see an opportunity to capture new business." The article focuses on the competition and doesn't even mention that Adobe's CEO called Microsoft a $50 billion monopolist.
Great, it's $600 cheaper, but nobody will buy it if it doesn't bring anything new to the table.
As someone who has worked with Flash since version 4 (in both a graphical and RIA capacity), the biggest stumbling blocks for Flash were/are:
1- Adobe Photoshop integration [*check!*]
2- Usefulness as a RIA application [remember the disaster that was Flash Googlemaps?]
3- Horribly broken scripting language [still an issue]
If Microsoft can compete on those points and bring something radically new to the table (say, easy 3D graphical development, quality OO scripting, etc) then they'll have an adoptable product. Otherwise, developers used to using Adobe & Flash products will look the other way.
Im also a web developer, and I *always* wait to experience a product, any product, by any developer, regardless of their prior history before I form any opinion on the product - sometimes its best to put the rhetoric away and join the adult world, especially when it comes to earning money.
It is actually cross-platform. WPF/E or Silverlight, as it is now called, supports both Linux and Mac OS systems.
About Microsoft: They may start out cross-platform, but eventually the mac version will fall behind on patches and then get EOL'd.
...and lots of other apps Adobe used to develop for the Mac.
Oh, just like Framemaker.
And Premier.
And look at where Photoshop is going...an interface mess that's more Windows-on-MacOS than a Mac application.
Adobe has steadily been losing my respect for years. Perhaps it's because they seem bent on becoming the Microsoft of creativity-based visual communications software.