Microsoft in Talks to Acquire Adobe

[rod bradley]

Microsoft was born as an acquirer of the handiwork of others. Its culture is one of control, dominance, conquest, marketeering -- not innovation or inventiveness. It won through cut-throat monopoly tactics. They won with a cranky bloated inefficient mousetrap that they've finally fixed. Because they could buy great talent (as long as they can stand it) to fix it. Everybody (including Adobe) has to play ball on their platform. And you have little choice but to "co-operate" or die. This is how monopolies work.

 

[Petr Dvorak]

wtf wtf

 

[Jon B.]

Shit

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Bye bye Flash!!!

 

[George Tsai]

Microsoft was born as an acquirer of the handiwork of others. Its culture is one of control, dominance, conquest, marketeering -- not innovation or inventiveness. It won through cut-throat monopoly tactics. They won with a cranky bloated inefficient mousetrap that they've finally fixed. Because they could buy great talent (as long as they can stand it) to fix it. Everybody (including Adobe) has to play ball on their platform. And you have little choice but to "co-operate" or die. This is how monopolies work.

and that's different from apple... how? unless your a supporter of linux, then awesome

Like the insane arguments on which cameras is the best, it's about getting the right tools for you to get the job done. There are things from Apple I use as well as Microsoft. Different applications for different jobs. That's why I use both systems..... and linux:-D

you should look into the history of these companies (Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, fairchild, etc), they're far from "born" an "acquirer" as you put it.

 

[andrewhake]

What is most amusing to be about this whole situation is people's reaction to it, and being almost certain more than 50% didn't even read the article.

2nd most amusing is that Microsoft and Adobe think this would help them compete against Apple in the mobile market. Unfortunately you can't just buy yourself back 5 years. . .

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Microsoft was born as an acquirer of the handiwork of others. Its culture is one of control, dominance, conquest, marketeering -- not innovation or inventiveness. It won through c.... (etc etc etc.).

Except for having one of the world's largest R&D departments which amongst other things consistently sponsors and publishes more SIGGRAPH papers on computer graphics than any other research group in the world, including Adobe.

The problem Microsoft has always had isn't one of innovation. It's one of implementation. They are constantly at the forefront of selling technology before it's viable for consumers or unable to package it in a fashion that's polished and presentable.

You can take something like the iPhone as the perfect example. Microsoft released a handheld which could make calls, surf the web, text message, install apps, multi task, etc etc.... in 2000. (Yes Nokia was even earlier) but my point is that they are really pretty good at innovating groundbreaking solutions. The problem is they often settle for selling "platforms" and not "solutions", depending on others to turn it into a product. In the case of the iPhone much of the innovative UI work was actually done by a company Apple purchased. OSX was technically based on BSD and NeXT. So every company purchases innovators. It just makes more sense to do it that way. Even with the world's largest R&D budget you can't even dent the surface on good ideas. When you purchase and acquire companies you can search the entire world and see the ideas that aren't just good concepts, but actually are actually proven solutions. 1,000 companies might come up with ideas and try to create a product but only 3-4 actually succeed. It's a bargain then to harvest the successes without wasting time on the 997 seemingly good ideas that just didn't quite work.

Adobe isn't exactly a foreigner to aquisitions and mergers either. The only products of note that Adobe *DIDN'T* simply buy were Premiere Pro and Illustrator.

Product | Developer
Photoshop: Barneyscan
After Effects: Company of Science and Art
Flash: Macromedia
Dreamweaver: Macromedia
Fireworks: Macromedia
InDesign: Aldus
On Location: Serious Magic
Audition: Syntrillium
Frame Maker: Frame Technology
Contribute: Macromedia
Buzzword: Virtual Ubiquity
Flex: Macromedia
Cold Fusion: Allaire -> Macromedia
GoLive: GoLive Systems

 

[George Tsai]

...
Audition: Syntrillium
...
GoLive: GoLive Systems

Yea, i loved the Cool Edit Pro days. Especially since they had easter eggs in their 'about'. Favorite one was you can play pong in Cool Edit. why did adobe get rid of that??? :-( hahaha

 

[Sven Seynaeve]

Thumbs up to The Foundry!!!!!!!

 

[Vico Martin]

Wellcome to Microsoft After Effects...
scared and frightened.

 

[Sebastian Gross]

...

...

micr....obe.

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

Adobe isn't some small innovative company. They're a huge slow behemoth like Microsoft. Their cultures would meld beautifully like two slugs mating.

Adobe has about 8,000 employees and generated just under $1 billion in their last fiscal quarter. Microsoft has 135,000 employees and generated over $14 billion in revenue last quarter. So which is the more bloated?

Adobe didn't grow last quarter, and their future guidance was flat to down. Their release of CS5 has not (yet) performed as well as they had hoped.

What is keeping these companies from competing with Apple isn't their product mix, it is their business model which is still predicated on direct and enterprise product sales. Whereas Apple has shifted its business model so that the company is increasingly less dependent on product cycles. A merger isn't going to change a stagnant business model.

 

[Laco Zamba]

Or Adobe Windows

 

[Elsie N]

Wonder if this isn't a move toward integration of some Adobe products into Windows in order to keep OS market share? Don't know if that would be a good thing or bad thing, but it could mean that MS is moving their slider more toward imaging and less toward Enterprise. I'm guessing that this would be a great acquisition for MicroSoft even if they just cannibalized Adobe for the parts they need to do this.

So, will Adobe CS continue as it seems to be lately, a solution for Indie post?... or go the way of FCP which appears to be conceding that market to single-product companies? I think whatever happens there will be plenty of affordable solutions (Storm) for us to work with.

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

Don't know if that would be a good thing or bad thing, but it could mean that MS is moving their slider more toward imaging and less toward Enterprise.

Actually, enterprise is Adobe's fastest growing market segment. Imaging is stagnating, to a degree, though as they say, it may still be early in the CS5 product cycle. So to Microsoft, this two-fer must look pretty attractive.

For the rest of us, The Foundry is looking very attractive. I would love to see someone small, nimble, and interested in innovation at the speed of RED, taking command of this space.

 

[Jody Neckles]

Except for having one of the world's largest R&D departments which amongst other things consistently sponsors and publishes more SIGGRAPH papers on computer graphics than any other research group in the world, including Adobe.

The problem Microsoft has always had isn't one of innovation. It's one of implementation. They are constantly at the forefront of selling technology before it's viable for consumers or unable to package it in a fashion that's polished and presentable.

You can take something like the iPhone as the perfect example. Microsoft released a handheld which could make calls, surf the web, text message, install apps, multi task, etc etc.... in 2000. (Yes Nokia was even earlier) but my point is that they are really pretty good at innovating groundbreaking solutions. The problem is they often settle for selling "platforms" and not "solutions", depending on others to turn it into a product. In the case of the iPhone much of the innovative UI work was actually done by a company Apple purchased. OSX was technically based on BSD and NeXT. So every company purchases innovators. It just makes more sense to do it that way. Even with the world's largest R&D budget you can't even dent the surface on good ideas. When you purchase and acquire companies you can search the entire world and see the ideas that aren't just good concepts, but actually are actually proven solutions. 1,000 companies might come up with ideas and try to create a product but only 3-4 actually succeed. It's a bargain then to harvest the successes without wasting time on the 997 seemingly good ideas that just didn't quite work.

Adobe isn't exactly a foreigner to aquisitions and mergers either. The only products of note that Adobe *DIDN'T* simply buy were Premiere Pro and Illustrator.

Product | Developer
Photoshop: Barneyscan
After Effects: Company of Science and Art
Flash: Macromedia
Dreamweaver: Macromedia
Fireworks: Macromedia
InDesign: Aldus
On Location: Serious Magic
Audition: Syntrillium
Frame Maker: Frame Technology
Contribute: Macromedia
Buzzword: Virtual Ubiquity
Flex: Macromedia
Cold Fusion: Allaire -> Macromedia
GoLive: GoLive Systems

Great post!

 

[Liam Hall]

What is most amusing to be about this whole situation is people's reaction to it, and being almost certain more than 50% didn't even read the article.

I read the linked article and the original one that it was quoting. As far as I could tell, it's a bunch of guff about mobile phones. I certainly couldn't see the relevance to filmmaking.

 

[BillBarnes]

Some of the generic Microsoft hate in this thread seems dated: a good strong competitive threat to Apple is healthy. I have no opinion either way as far as this merger is concerned but MS does do some things extremely well. The .NET Framework that underlies much of Windows 7 is a generation ahead of the tech underneath OS X in many many ways.

Apple's creative control and focus along with Job's vision is awesome to watch and their products are great, I frankly love using OS X, but to keep up the M$ hate like it's still the 1990's is a bit tired.

From a programming stand point, I would challenge Apple to come up with an environment that comes close to Visual Studio or .NET.

 

[Mark Allen]

Well that is one way to kill Flash.

Where is the "Like" button for this comment?
:hurray:

 

[Stephen Gentle]

I still don't think that MS and Adobe would be allowed to merge... But still, as people are saying, The Foundry is looking great right now. But even if STORM becomes an editing tool (it looks like it's most of the way there already), there's still not many good motion graphics packages outside of After Effects... Unless Apple has given Motion a huge makeover for the next FCS next year...

Wellcome to Microsoft After Effects...
scared and frightened.

Probably more like , "Welcome to 'Microsoft Windows Digital Video and Cinema After Effects 2011 Series Professional Edition'

The .NET Framework that underlies much of Windows 7 is a generation ahead of the tech underneath OS X in many many ways.

.NET does not underlie any of Windows 7... One of the only Microsoft applications I have that uses .NET is actually Visual Studio itself. And that's only for the GUI layer, which uses WPF - the main application still appears to be written in native C++.