11 ms·
Microsoft Buying Adobe?
- dbrannan 16y agoI've often wondered why Apple doesn't buy Adobe, kill all development for PCs, and leave Microsoft high and dry in the creative market. Just saying...
- umjames 16y agoI don't know how Apple would feel about having to deal with all those enterprise customers who run Adobe software on PCs only. Also, a number of Adobe products don't have Mac versions, like ColdFusion and JRun. Yes, there are still places that rely on this software.
- ctravis 16y agoKilling off the Mac version of CS would do a pretty good job halting Apple's inroads into enterprise
- jrockway 16y agoWhat's "CS"? Unless it's Outlook's calendaring, I doubt it will have any effect on "the enterprise". Remember, most people only use their computers to send email, setup meetings, and browse Facebook.
- tuacker 16y agoCS is shorthand for Creative Suite. A collection of several Adobe products into one package available in several flavors. http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/ http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/
- ctravis 16y agoCorrect, but a large chunk of corporations have in house creative departments and many(if not most) use macs. Killing the Mac version of CS would force them to switch back to PC.
- dbrannan 16y agoColdfusion runs on Mac, not certain about JRun.
- rbanffy 16y ago> Yes, there are still places that rely on this software. Killing JRun and Cold Fusion would be doing them a favor.
- dbrannan 16y agoYou are speaking out of ignorance.
- etherael 16y agoSpeaking as someone who worked multiple cf projects over multiple years, no, he's not.
- rbanffy 16y agoWell... On the other hand, killing CF and JRun to doom them to IIS and .NET is not exactly helpful...
- etherael 16y agoHelpful to whom? of all the devs I've ever met that have used CF, the most positive thing I've ever heard said about it is that "they're used to its failings and it's comfortable". I can't help but think Microsoft's tools are a much more appealing value proposition than Adobe's in this particular space.
- rbanffy 16y agoMicrosoft's tools may be more appealing than Cold Fusion or JRun, but they are still less appealing than pretty much everything else this side of Java. At least with CF and (IIRC) JRun you are not locked into Windows...
- etherael 16y agoYeah, it's a little strange that it actually sits in the same basic ecosystem as everything else on the other side of the microsoft stack and yet manages to be worse even than the MS offerings. Frankly even considering the vendor lock-in implicit in being wed to the MS stack, I'd take that option over CF any day of the week. That said I see no reason to choose between different degrees of poison when there's plenty of good clean water around.
- dagw 16y agoI wonder if Microsoft is thinking the same thing. Either as a defensive move to make sure Photoshop will always work on Windows or as an offensive move and making Photoshop and friends windows only in an attempt to strangle the OS X platform.
- city41 16y agoMost designers I know would work for McDonald's before they'd use Windows :)
- wwortiz 16y agoI know you probably aren't entirely serious but people can and do change when their choices disappear. Fundamentalists may differ.
- michaelbuckbee 16y agoYou're correct in a general sense, but for the specific case of designers working in fields where the standard computer is a Windows machine I've almost always seen an exception made for the design department to use Macs.
- armandososa 16y agoI could use Windows but I'll never buy Windows.
- bradly 16y agoApple has been able to create pro level software for both audio and video editing industries. If Adobe/Microsoft scraped its mac line of products, I bet Apple would have a competing product out in 12 months that graphic designers would flock to.
- carbon8 16y agoNote, however, that those were all originally acquisitions. FCP was born at Macromedia and Apple purchased the product and hired the team. Shake came from the Nothing Real acquisition. Logic is from the Emagic acquisition.
- bhiggins 16y agoApple already has all the PDF technology they want, and the creative products are too high end (too niche) or Apple has a competing product.
- dchest 16y agoMaybe it's better to kill Office for Mac then?
- noarchy 16y agoI assume that Microsoft is making some money on Office for Mac. They aren't developing that product for charity. I don't see any reason for them to kill off development for the Mac, especially if they acquire Adobe. Microsoft could use some help in the mobile market, though, so I can believe the idea of those two companies joining forces to make some headway there.
- wtallis 16y agoVendor lock-in isn't as crucial to Adobe's CS as it is to Office. Microsoft doesn't want anybody to even think that there's such a thing as an "Office alternative", whereas recent years have proven that upstart competitors to components of CS can get traction. So, while killing CS for Mac might work (users switching platforms might outnumber users switching programs), killing Office for Mac would just force universities to switch to ODF and in the long term, it would hurt the rest of Office's markets.
- bad_user 16y agokilling Office for Mac IMHO that would be a catastrophe for Apple: the existence of MS Office being the only reason Mac OS X (and not Linux) is an accepted alternative for employees inside many companies (including at Adobe btw). Sorry, but CS is niche software used by certain professionals. MS Office / Exchange are used by everybody else ;) And I wouldn't bet against Microsoft for providing an alternative to CS: judging from the experience of using Microsoft Blend, they are rookies, but they can manage it.
- runjake 16y agoBecause the Windows versions of their products account for the vast majority of their profits.
- brudgers 16y agoI suspect that were Adobe to leave the Windows market, the vacated "niche" would be quickly filled.
- andybak 16y agoIt might be harder than you think to replace highly refined creative tools such as Illustrator or Photoshop. Although they have become rather bloated and the last few versions have failed to innovate in significant ways, there is a lot of graphics professionals who would be very reluctant to waste all that hard-won muscle-memory. Plus there's a lot of work-flow knowledge in them there apps.
- protomyth 16y agoNot to mention all the color patents.
- brudgers 16y agoI agree that replacing Illustrator and Photoshop are nontrivial. I doubt that a typical startup could do it. On the other hand, it would be a natural fit for someone like Autodesk given their resources and markets. Retail box graphics applications could make sense in Microsoft's product line. Even Corel would be in a position to capitalize on Adobe leaving the Windows market.
- duck 16y agoExactly, I have tried repeatedly to switch to GIMP as Photoshop is the only reason I have a Windows box at home - but I just can't do it.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- siglesias 16y agoAt this point with the Flash debate there'd be no culture fit. Also there was a ton of tension between these companies early in the decade when Adobe was dragging its feet to do Photoshop for OSX.
- misterbwong 16y agoApple wouldn't do this for the same reason that MS doesn't do this with Office: $$$$$$. There's too much money in the PC market to ignore it.
- dbrannan 16y agoExplain please.
- bad_user 16y agoActually there have been internal talks / rumors about the possibility of Apple buying Adobe (1-2 years ago): guess it didn't work out.
- jerhewet 16y agoWHY?!?! Why, God, oh WHY! Adobe has long lost any luster it might have had, and has descended into outsourced maintenance-ware. An acquisition like this would be about as smart as Intel acquiring Mc(rap)fee... EDIT: aCquisition.
- protomyth 16y agoWell, to be fair, maybe Flash for OS X would actually improve. On the other hand, Flash for Linux might meet with an unfortunate accident.
- pseudonym 16y ago50-100% processor usage isn't already an unfortunate accident?
- sliverstorm 16y agoLook on the bright side- it doesn't yet melt your CPU. Under MS's guiding hand, I'm sure it would figure out how.
- dinkumthinkum 16y agoI just don't get that. It's not like MS have the superior computer scientists and the rest of us are little children. Adobe has the money to pay people to solve those problems. The Flash situation on Mac and Linux is just ridiculous.
- sliverstorm 16y agoYes, but Adobe obviously elects not to pay people to solve those problems. The question, then, becomes 'why'.
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- napierzaza 16y agoMy god, with them together, what great software will they make!
- jacquesm 16y agoI have the hardest time figuring out if you're serious or sarcastic.
- adolph 16y agoI think the comment cuts both ways at the same time.
- rbritton 16y agoThink of what great software activation schemes they will make!
- seldo 16y agoAnd the updates! The glorious, unending stream of modal software-update dialogs!
- prawn 16y agoAdobe Updater wanted to be updated the other day. I had to laugh.
- NickPollard 16y agoRecursion is a vital part of software development.
- benologist 16y agoCould be worse .... Apple could buy them, making an incremental Photoshop update 6 gig + an hour to install.
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- spicyj 16y agoPlease, no.
- hswolff 16y agoI feel like there's a joke in there somewhere... Something about how an adobe (proper noun) is naturally small and soft. Seems somehow fitting for the two companies to become one, no?
- lazugod 16y agoAdobe is a type of brick, so not particularly soft.
- cryptoz 16y ago"Microsoft Flash". shudder
- seiji 16y ago"Adobe Flash" shudder
- ladon86 16y agoMicrosoft Photoshop. Windows 8 only. :(
- protomyth 16y agoRibbons in CS6
- threepointone 16y agorelevant - http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/ http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/
- russell 16y agoI have done a little PhotoShop. My GR has done a lot of CS4. I cant imaging how MS could make it less intuitive.
- batiudrami 16y agoThis would make me so happy. Photoshop is unbelievably unintuitive, and in my opinion, the Ribbon improved exactly that for Microsoft Office.
- neolefty 16y agoMicrosoft Office. Windows only. Oh yeah, Mac too.
- icey 16y agoThere is something to that - Microsoft has been spending a lot of money and resources trying to encourage Silverlight adoption. One way to do that might be to buy the rights to Flash.
- protomyth 16y agoApple really needs to buy Adobe. Apple's response will determine how much life they see in their "truck" (OS X) line. This, coupled with Intel's comments on Apple, really make me wonder.
- xenophanes 16y agoWhat comments by intel?
- mcbain 16y agoMaybe various comments indicating how they are unhappy they've missed the mobile bus, including seemingly oddball suggestions like a tool to "port" iOS apps to x86: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/69637/20101007/intel-porting-apps-smartphones-tablets-apple-ios-app-store-appup-nokia-meego-infineon-iphone-apps-de.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/69637/20101007/intel-porting...
- protomyth 16y agohttp://www.electronista.com/articles/10/09/09/intel.says.google.tv.shipping.in.september/ http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/09/09/intel.says.goo... http://www.macworld.com/article/154632/2010/10/intel_mobile_apps.html http://www.macworld.com/article/154632/2010/10/intel_mobile_...
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- charlief 16y agoRegarding: "Adobe's shares rise as much as 17 percent" Just a small detail, but the above bullet exaggerates the indicative reaction of the market. It was up 17 percent for an instant because someone fat fingered and bought it for $30.00 exactly at 3:08pm (Added: 12 minutes after the announcement at 2:56pm), maybe a little excited to buy in. Really it is up 10-11%, which is a strong and positive reaction, but there is more uncertainty factored into the price than what the bullet would seem to imply.
- zokier 16y agoGotta love stock markets. A rumor arises of two CEO's secretly meeting, and stocks skyrocket instantly. I'd assume that nobody actually knows what they were discussing, if they even met. Wouldn't be much of a secret meeting otherwise.
- joezydeco 16y agoProves the old adage. "Buy on the rumor, sell on the news"
- narkee 16y agoIt's really interesting, when you think about it as a system that changes in response to observation. Can you imagine if physical systems worked like that? That observed physical phenomena would change in response to what the experimenter/observer thinks will happen?
- ThomPete 16y agoIt kind of do according to QM.
- narkee 16y agoNot really. QM measurements follow probability distributions, but are not dependent on what the experimenter thinks about the system. Consider a 2-state single particle system, the outcome probabilities of one state vs. the other are fixed by the Hamiltonian and the time evolution of the system, and not by the experimenter's opinion of the system.
- MichaelApproved 16y agoI think MS time and money would be better spent buying much smaller web companies that innovate and grow. Adobe is old and shrinking. As a .net dev id love to see them grow the community beyond enterprise.
- commieneko 16y agoI felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
- MichaelApproved 16y agoCould they be doing this so flash 11 includes silverlight support?
- lallysingh 16y agoMicrosoft Flashlight?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- matrix 16y agoI suppose this is feasible if Microsoft is looking to acquire Adobe's enterprise customer base - the PDF, document management, etc part of the company. Having Air/Flex/Flash might also be nice, but doesn't seem like a good fit for Microsoft's traditional Windows-centric strategy (one they should abandon, in my view - the days of owning the market via the desktop are rapidly coming to a close). What I'd love to see is Microsoft buy the Flash/PDF side of the company, and then the creative arm (CS, the type foundry, lightroom, etc) be spun off into an independent company that was once again run by people passionate about design and great software.
- mcbain 16y agoWhat is Microsoft's track record for spinning off companies? The Photoshop/CS part of Adobe is somewhat profitable, correct? Would MS let it go (even for a bucket of cash)?
- jpablo 16y agoExpedia is a Microsoft spin off. I guess that one worked ok.
- Keyframe 16y agoSoftimage was bought for a purpose and spun off later. It was bought by Microsoft to port Softimage|3D (and develop XSI) for NT platform - to show NT is as powerful for those applications as IRIX was. It was done, and it was sold later to AVID, now Softimage is part of Autodesk. On a side note, I always thought Autodesk was Adobe's natural predator, I was expecting a buy offer from them.
- virtualritz 16y agoIt took Soft years to recover from that imho. When I wrote a an XSI plugin for a feature film production, in 2005, for XSI running on Linux, half of the API was still using COM, it the app required a special gcc version that shipped with the sdk to compile plugins with and the Python was ActiveState Python (which clashed with the Linux system's Python). In short, it was a disaster from a developers, and still a lot of trouble from a user's pov. Now Adobe doesn't support Linux much but if what MS did to XSI is anything to go by, I wouldn't want to be a developer on one of those apps, after the acquisition.
- mcfunley 16y ago"Adobe, Microsoft expected to collapse into new black hole after getting nearly 90% of the world's shitty C++ together under one roof."
- mahmud 16y agoDon't know about the rest of Adobe, but the flash team is heavily intertwined with mozilla and google developers. Go sample irc.mozilla.org sometime. Fun fact, the first JavaScript was written by a Netscaper in Lisp. The first ActionScript was in Standard ML, and now both guys work on ECMAScript :-) ActionScript's engine powers Mozilla's JS engine (yes, flash and firefox engines off the same code base!) and the Lisper guy works on V8. Get into the javascript scene and you will find the intellectual incest that is hacking.
- dinkumthinkum 16y agoshitty C++ ... really?
- mfukar 16y agoYeah, I bet none of Microsoft's or Adobe's products ever worked for you.
- threepointone 16y agoAs a thought: If it does happen, I can totally see an MS Office GRAND DELUXE edition that puts together Office and CS. And I would guess that the price would be less than the sum of the individual packages. That wouldn't be too bad, really.
- d2viant 16y agoThey haven't even included Visio in the Office bundle yet, so I doubt they'd put Photoshop in there.
- rbanffy 16y ago...because two bricks float better than one...
- rgrieselhuber 16y agoAn interesting move from an analytics perspective. They'd get Omniture and valuable data about the biggest advertising budgets spent online.
- rfolstad 16y agoMicrosoft wants to bundle flash into their web browser and phones just like google?!
- mootothemax 16y agoI'm not sure I understand: how would a merger between these two companies get past the regulators? I doubt they'd let Apple jump into bed with Adobe, let alone Microsoft...
- mattparcher 16y agoFrom the original NYT report [1]: Randal C. Picker, a professor of law of the University of Chicago law school, said in a telephone interview that the technology space is drastically different than it was when Microsoft was originally charged with antitrust violations and an acquisition or partnership of this nature would likely not be halted. Mr. Picker said that the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are focused on other large technology companies and consumer related issues. [1] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/microsoft-and-adobe-chiefs-meet-to-discuss-partnerships/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/microsoft-and-adobe...
- mootothemax 16y agoThanks, very interesting. I'm genuinely surprised though, as we're talking about some huge spaces being gobbled up: Photoshop, ColdFusion, Director, Flash, FrameMaker, Illustrator etc. And those are just some of their bigger names! :)
- andrewf 16y agoI would have thought that the antitrust concerns would go the other way this time - the combined company using the dominance of Photoshop to prop up Windows (by cancelling the Mac version), or the dominance of Flash to prop up Windows Mobile (by killing Flash for Android).
- mattparcher 16y agoFrom the original NYT report [1], the discussions seem to be less about acquisition, and more about “Apple and its control of the mobile phone market and how the two companies could partner in the battle against Apple.” Indeed, acquisition is a real and fascinating possibility, but surely there are many other ways they could work together to fight Apple, if that is what they want to do. [1] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/microsoft-and-adobe-chiefs-meet-to-discuss-partnerships/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/microsoft-and-adobe...
- Scott_MacGregor 16y agoIf this happens, I wonder how long it will take to fold the Adobe contacts and products into BizSpark.
- revorad 16y agoSuch a deal could be worth $15 billion or more based on Adobe's current market value. Adobe is worth less than half of Facebook? Rolls eyes
- joezydeco 16y agoApples and Oranges. Adobe is publicly traded. When (if) Facebook IPOs, they will not be worth $33 billion. http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33000000000 http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33...
- revorad 16y agoI know, I'm equally amused by the valuations. It's a bit like old school advertising (billboards, TV) versus Google pay-per-click ads. As soon as you can measure something accurately, it's value decreases.
- irrelative 16y agoIndeed. Old school advertising was sort of like a mystery box. What do you think's inside? It could be ANYTHING! Sort of like the maxim "Half my advertising works, I just don't know which half." Well, Google let you measure which half, and improve on the other.
- wealthyox 16y agoPrecisely. Real capital market value, based on demand vs VC paper games.
- ceejayoz 16y agoFacebook's worth is unknown.
- iuguy 16y agoThis would be quite interesting. If Microsoft bought Adobe, what would happen to PDF on Mac? What would happen to Silverlight? Would the next Office use PDF as a standard format? Then there's the creative suite. What would happen to photoshop? Dreamweaver (or MS Frontpage 2012 as it'd be renamed)? InDesign (or Microsoft Publisher 2012 as it'd be called)? Also think about the other side of it. The Acrobat team would be forced to actually secure their reader instead of relying on researchers to do it for them. I think this can only be a good thing(tm). As Dan Kaminsky once said, "What could possibly go wrong?"
- emilsedgh 16y agoPDF has an open spec and third party developers could make as many PDF readers as they want. Like on Linux, where there are plenty of PDF readers, mostly based on Poppler. I guess there must be non-Adobe PDF readers for mac.
- andrewf 16y ago"Preview" is part of Mac OS X and works well enough that third party viewers aren't popular.
- dsspence 16y agoApple doesn't license PDF from Adobe even though it is part of OS X's native graphics renderer. “The Quartz renderer and the PDF interpreter that Apple ships with Mac OS X are built with Apple code, with no external licenses, by Apple employees. Adobe just publishes a specification for how it’s supposed to function. This gives Apple considerably more flexibility with regard to what Quartz and the PDF interpreter can be used for.” http://www.prepressure.com/pdf/basics/osx_quartz http://www.prepressure.com/pdf/basics/osx_quartz
- protomyth 16y agoSteve Jobs learned from his experience with Adobe and the licensed version of Display Postscript. (see footnote 1 http://daringfireball.net/2008/02/flash_iphone_calculus http://daringfireball.net/2008/02/flash_iphone_calculus )
- rwhitman 16y agoI'm really scared of a future where microsoft forces itself into my life by acquiring everything I use on a regular basis.
- golgo13 16y agoWhat would this mean for Flash and Silverlight? Would MS also can the Expression Studio as well? Why would the same company put out Illustrator and Expression Design?
- olalonde 16y agoMicrosoft should start thinking about acquiring a web company instead. One day, they will look back and realize that, in retrospective, they shouldn't have held on to the desktop. An analogy could be made with newspapers who held on to the paper. Time might prove me wrong, but I doubt it.
- krf 16y agoThey have thought about - MS tried to buy Yahoo. Didn't work - not too many other alternatives - maybe they'll try again. Don't forget also that MS owns a chunk of Facebook. MS is starting to go big on the cloud too, so they are getting into position slowly but surely for the future...
- keithwarren 16y agoI dont understand this, you seem to think that Microsoft has ignored the web when they are in fact one of the largest web companies on the planet. There is almost no company they could buy who would not overlap in concerns. You might argue that some companies are better at certain things or have larger customer bases but this idea that they should buy a web company and quit holding on to the desktop is just goofy. All that said, one important web asset MSFT doesnt have a strong play in is web analytics.
- Niten 16y agoFor my part, I'm glad there are still companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe "holding onto the desktop", selling me software that I can run on my own hardware, allowing me to keep my data to myself.
- old-gregg 16y agoJokes aside, it makes perfect sense for both of them. Adobe's CS and Microsoft Office are naturally self-complementing desktop giants. Both companies make a ton of money selling desktop software to the enterprise, yet outside of Flash/Sliverlight battle they don't cross each other paths. I, for one, welcome this development. It brings some hopes for better performing Flash, which I hate with a passion but its a fact of life. Flash is in need of some engineering muscle. There are many things Microsoft can possibly do to it and most of them are good, see: kill it -> good, open source it -> good, merge with silverlight -> good. Same thing with other Adobe products: they used to be best in class some time ago, but I'm convinced that company cannot code anymore, but Microsoft still can. No way this is bad news. The worse that can happen is nothing changes. Edit: also, lets stop this nonsense with applying "still somewhat profitable" and "dying" to these companies. Both are doing great financially. Adobe's profits from CS keep breaking records - look at http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/201006/Q210Earnings.html http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/2010...
- pchristensen 16y agoNot disagreeing, but Innovators Dilemma theory says that companies that are about to be disrupted are enjoying the greatest profits and margins ever. The problem is that the reason the profits are so high is that they've shed their less profitable divisions and products that might grow into the next big innovation. Let's say something disrupts MSFTs Office and shrinks its revenue - what do they have that could replace that?
- iamelgringo 16y agowhat do they have that could replace that? Sharepoint, SQLServer, Windows 7, Windows Server, Windows Virtual Server, CRM, Exchange Server, XBox, Xbox live, Bing, Zune, Microsoft Automotive platform, Win 7 phone. Microsoft has one of the most diverse revenue streams of any software company. They're going to be around for a while. Google should actually be more afraid of disruptive technologies. Their revenue is primarily from advertising. They are truly a single revenue source company.
- ja27 16y ago"Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, recently showed up with a small entourage of deputies at Adobe’s offices to hold a secret meeting..." Ballmer's not that dumb, is he? Sounds like posturing for Apple / Google.
- evo_9 16y agoIt's funny but I avoid Adobe products more than anyone else these days - an 'honor' held by Microsoft for a very long time. I don't know what is worse Acrobat or Flash at this point (esp. on mac).
- andybak 16y agoCan everyone commenting on this please remember that Adobe produces software aside from Flash and Reader? Those two may interfere with your browsing habits but just because you don't come into contact with anything else Adobe produces doesn't mean it doesn't have some importance in the software industry.
- vincell1 16y agoThis is probably one of those high priced mergers that wont really help MSN compete with Apple. Doesn't Apple hate flash? And isn’t HTML5 the future? I think MSN would be better off spending money on a smaller company that can really help its mobile strategy.
- codedivine 16y agoWell, are Flash and AIR supported on Windows Phone 7?
- aseem 16y agoDoes that mean the new runtime will be called FlashLight?
- juanefren 16y agoI think is funny enough to deserve a non-negative score :) (+1)
- voxxit 16y agoGod help us.
- neovive 16y agoI just don't see the synergies of a full takeover beyond owning the rights to the PDF format. A full takeover would result in Microsoft paying a high premium for a set of desktop design applications (CS suite) that are not part of its DNA. Microsoft excels at building excellent tools for developers, but never seems to do a good job with design tools. Adobe is the opposite. What's more possible is some sort of partnership that enables stronger PDF support in Office, improved Flash support in Windows Phone and better integration between Office and CS applications. Microsoft's primary business is selling Windows and Office desktop licenses. Since many Adobe CS users also own Windows and Office licenses, better integration between the two suites would be beneficial for both companies. Introducing a new mobile phone OS based on Flash/Flex/Silverlight or some other combination would not be worth the acquisition cost.
- rmason 16y agoumjames - ColdFusion is built upon Java, of course it runs on the Mac as well as 'nix. If you go to a gathering of CF developers eighty percent of them are running Mac laptops.
- smashing 16y agoNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- code_duck 16y agoI was wondering if MS was going to buy Adobe 7-8 years ago, if not 12, but it seems odd at this point.
- SwaroopH 16y agoMicrobe?
- jasonkester 16y agoThis has one major implication that makes me want to root for the deal to close: Photoshop & Flash would be covered by an MSDN subscription. So, instead of dishing out $1000 for CS6, we need only enroll in BizSpark (or whatever Microsoft's next version of its ISV thing is called), and pay $400 for all our OS's, all our dev tools, and all our graphics stuff in one package. Now all they need to do is buy Codesmith, Red Gate and Jetbrains so that I never need to pay full price for software again.
- kmfrk 16y agoThat and MSDNAA.
- eogas 16y agoAnd Dreamspark!
- twodayslate 16y agoThanks for telling me about BizSpark! I love you!
- rbanffy 16y agoTell that a couple years from now...
- TorKlingberg 16y agoThis would be the final end of the desktop application. Adobe is the last remaining large independent maker of mass-market desktop applications. Everyone else has been crushed between the web, Microsoft and open source.
- ja2ke 16y agoExcept for everyone else who still makes programs for people who create things which aren't just code or the written word... Audio, video, 3D, print and web visual design are all still done on the desktop, and only a slice of that is controlled by Adobe.
- roadnottaken 16y agoOne big upside to this that I can see is that it might result in standardization of the Adobe CS GUI. It's been getting weirder and weirder with every new version, to the point where nothing I know about how Windows programs are supposed to behave applies. That said, considering that MSFT just f*ed up the Office GUI (ribbon, etc) I probably shouldn't hold my breath. Seriously, what's wrong with menus and windows?