Microsoft Moves in on the Graphics Market

Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft has quietly been building up graphics-related R&D, reports Computerworld, noting that Microsoft employees will be presenting one out of every eight papers at SIGGRAPH 2007. And it's not a fluke — other recent Microsoft graphics-related developments include Photosynth, which has been discussed on Slashdot several times, as well as the Silverlight/Expression Studio graphics suite, which will compete with Adobe's Flash/Illustrator/Lightroom/Dreamweaver offerings. At SIGGRAPH, Microsoft will supposedly have demos of some new software including image deblurring tools and Soft Scissors, which 'solves the vexing problem of how to cut and paste an image from one background to another if the image's edges — hair blowing in the wind, blades of grass — are very complex.' Microsoft's competitors aren't sitting down. Adobe's CEO, calling Microsoft a '$50 billion monopolist,' has questioned whether Silverlight will be compatible with non-Windows operating systems, and Google has also been building up its own graphics-related software products, such as the 3D modeling tool SketchUp, and Google Earth."

Microsoft might be a monopolist...

[HaloMan]

but I can't feel any sympathy for Adobe, who is increasingly monopolising the design arena with their obscenely priced tools. Competition is good, no matter what your opinion on Microsoft is - someone needs to take on rapidly enlarging 500lb gorilla that is Adobe, particularly since they took over Macromedia.

Re:

[phalse phace]

Adobe, who is increasingly monopolising the design arena with their obscenely priced tools.

What? You actually pay for your Adobe program(s)?

Re:

[KlomDark]

Adobe? The same lazy company that STILL hasn't released a 64-bit Flash player for either Windows or Linux. XP x64 has been out for something like four years now, now Vista x64 is out too.

Unacceptable - 64-bit is solidly here now, even my non-technical mom, and my son's daycare provider, both have 64-bit machines. (Albeit with 32 bit XP on them)

Much as I dislike a lot of stuff about Microsoft, I'm sold on Silverlight. Adobe's apparently ignoring the evolution of their products. I am very sick of getting "Cli

Re:

[Pyrion]

Mozilla has yet to release an "official" Firefox x64 build for Windows, so complain to them first. 32-bit Flash works just fine within 32-bit Firefox on Vista x64.

Really, I don't see them moving to 64-bit until they actually have reason to. Either MS forces the issue (by abandoning 32-bit) or memory requirements force the issue.

Re:

[amsr]

Honestly, do you really care that much about watching YouTube videos and website ads in 64bit? I mean I could understand if you were complaining about photoshop, but flash player? What does 64 bit flash playing get you over 32bit flash playing?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

And if it sucks, so what? Nobody is forcing anyone to buy it. Frontpage was shit, which is why it was discontinued.

And, FWIW, Dreamweaver isn't good either, it's just the best of a bad bunch.

500 lb gorilla or...

[Arthur Grumbine]

15,000 lb elephant? The gorilla may be more adept with it's tools, but the elephant has a lot of weight to swing around and can hurt a lot more(in magnitude and multitude) in the long run.

If the previous mainstream outside-the-OS/Office ventures of MS are any indication (see Xbox, Zune, et al) though, it's competitor(Adobe here) is going to put up a serious fight, and the consumer will enjoy the effects of the competition, just like if we got to watch an actual 500 lb gorilla and an actual 15,000 lb elep

Re:

[COMON$]

Reminds me of a Simpsons episode Homer- "bring in the elephant and monkey to fight for my amusement" Burns"God like worship... even the monkey and elephant had some merit, but treating employee's fairly?" Or something like that

Re:

[COMON$]

Which is the point, Google comes out with some phenomenal products and yes I am a Google fan boy but Google is a long way away from replacing my Office 2007 addiction. Toys are nice and useful, there are some great stitch programs and the auto fill-in is a neat concept, but it just doesn't compete with the CS studio, you can do a couple things well but the CS studio is a complete robust solution for doing professional work not just a toy, which is why Adobe feels they can charge their exorbitant prices

Re:

[HaloMan]

Which is why we should welcome Microsoft employing professionals and bringing alternative robust solutions for doing professional work.

I don't see anyone losing if there's two professional-quality graphics applications competing with each other. Except possibly Adobe's share price.

Re:Microsoft might be a monopolist...

[vought]

I don't see anyone losing if there's two professional-quality graphics applications competing with each other. Except possibly Adobe's share price.

How about professional graphic artists and other who have to exchange files between the two suites all the time? I'm pretty sure they'll lose:

-Money. They'll have to buy both suites.
-Money. They'll have to keep two platforms and three binaries around if they're a Mac shop, and they'll have to have someone manage all of it.
-Productivity. Even if interoperable somehow, converting from one tool/platform to another rarely goes smoothly.
-Time. It'll all take longer.

Adobe does a great job with it's tools. I'd love to see someone develop something from the ground up that does most of what Photoshop or (insert your favoite Adobe tool here) using the same file formats Adobe currently uses.

Microsoft, however, is known for mediocre approaches using mediocre tools. I'm not eager to see what they plan to do using new file formats and new approaches. I'll be the first to admit it i I'm wrong, but all I see happenening is a repeat of the desktop publishing market in the early-to-mid 90s: lots of different software, lots of delays, and lots of clueless newbies who think that because it says "Microsoft", it's automagically an accepted standard.

Re:

[DaedalusHKX]

Foxit PDF, google it. Quite a nice little util... though to create pdf's you have to buy (or crack it). But that is entirely up to you :)

There are others out there.

Re:Microsoft might be a monopolist...

[pressman]

Oh come on. Adobe is so deeply entrenched in their market with a bevvy of world class apps, that even Microsoft won't be able to put a dent in it. No one at Microsoft cares about or understands the need of graphic artists and content creators. They just don't care. The only reason they are attempting to get into this space is because they see a potential for profit. They'll find the fastest and cheapest way to get into the market and they'll inundate the market with a load of crap software that will only make Flash, Illustrator and Photoshop look even better by comparison.

Will this stuff run on a Mac? Where the vast majority of creative work is done? Of course not.... except through Boot Camp or Paralells. They're starting off handicapped from the get-go. This whole suite of apps and delivery methods is still born. They are only trying to make some cash and that is not a good motivating factor for making software. Having a good idea that meets the needs of your customers and then building the tool for them and pricing it accordingly to make a profit is the far better approach.

Re:

[COMON$]

This is off topic but regarding mac software have you checked out VMWARE Fusion, just came out this week and may makes my need to have multiple versions of software less likely.

Re:

[pressman]

Only seen Boot Camp and Parallels in action. Gotta say Parallels working in coherence mode is pretty stunning. When I actually get an Intel Mac I'm most certainly going to weigh all my options regarding virtualization for Windows. They all seem to be coming along rather nicely.

Re:

[COMON$]

Coherence in parallels isnt something I have played with, I am guessing it is the same thing as Unity in VMware fusion. Fusion allows you to create a windows installation in a VM environment, install what apps you need and then switch to unity mode then you just see the apps and explorer in a toolbar and run whatever you want, it looks like it is running on the mac. Makes me feel so good to have outlook running instead of crappy Entourage, I do wonder (to keep us on topic as the moderators have their ta

Re:Microsoft might be a monopolist...

[pressman]

Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, AfterEffects... these are all high end products that a niche market absolutely needs in order to do work. A word processor and internet browser on the other hand are useful to the vast majority of computer users. Since M$ controlled the desktop OS market, it was VERY easy for them to inundate the masses with cheap or free tools and undercut their rivals and get themselves yet another monopoly.

When most of the creative types out there are using Macs and Adobe software, M$ doesn't have the same leverage... they don't don't have Windows to tip things in their favor and gain the dominance they want.

When M$ wants into the niche markets, they always have a hard time. When they want to get into a field that every average user is in, they just make it free in Windows and BANG! Instant market domination.

They're getting their asses handed to them in the video game console war... they're a non-entry in the portable entertainment device arena and they're struggling in search services.

They're not invincible and in the niche markets, where people care about quality. They really really struggle because they a) don't care about those customers and b) just don't understand them. Making a tool cheap or even free isn't going to make people flock to it. If that were the case we'd all be singing the praises of GIMP on Linux and have no clue what Photoshop is.

People who need the tools and a high standard of reliability will flock to the tools that provide that. Adobe is a company that provides tools of that caliber.... and they are worth every penny! Microsoft doesn't give a rats ass about quality, all they care about is market share and income streams... if they had their way, they'd give up software altogether and find a way to have congress force us to pay them money for no reason.

Re:

[Hijacked Public]

Photoshop will be an extremely tough hill to climb because there really are no other apps in the ballpark. That leverage is how they got Lightroom into the hands of so many photographers despite that fact it really isn't very good at doing any tasks that weren't copied straight out of Photoshop.

Before Microsoft bought iView it was a much better photo management app than Lightroom. The only thing better about Adobe's product was its UI and integration with Photoshop. I don't know what changes MS has made but

Re:

[GeckoX]

PS is not a tough hill to climb at all, unless you're climbing to the very top.

Maybe 5% of users use 90% of the features in PS. It's serious overkill for most graphical needs except high end skilled professional work. And it's ludicrously expensive for anyone elses needs.

I do lots of graphical work in my job, lots of minor editing and image creation, gui element creation, that kind of thing. Know what? Paint.net has all of the tools from PS that I'd ever need for my requirements, and it's free. (As well as

Re:

[Hijacked Public]

I'm a professional photographer, which is one of the high end high margin markets Microsoft would like to do more business in, and is the 5% you guess at above. If they want in they'll need to deal with Photoshop in some way. If Paint.net, or GIMP, or any of the other giveaway photo programs do all you need, you are both not the market we're talking about here nor do you understand its needs.

I went to one day of Microsoft's Pro Photo Summit last month and I get the impression they are quite serious about th

Re:Microsoft might be a monopolist...

[The Great Pretender]

Personally I don't believe that the business folks at microsoft really give a toss about the highend 5%. Put some numbers on it. Say for easy math that Adobes market is worth $100 million dollars. 5% is worth a pretty big $5 million, but Microsoft most likely cares about the $95 million. Adobe can probably keep their 5% high end users and MS wouldn't even blink.

Re:

[gilesjuk]

They're serious, but they don't have a clue.

They'll buy up some small company who does have a clue.

Also they're very keen to replace jpeg with something of their own.

Re:

[COMON$]

Adobe _should_ have been providing a free version of PS with less features to the masses for YEARS now

Why should they do that when the GIMP project does it for them at no cost?

Obsolescence and the Mac Platform

[gobbo]

On an iMac the monitor is disposable (unless I am missing something).

Yah, you are missing the used computer market. Mac users who bother to upgrade sell their computers for a premium, the used prices are inflated so it works well to buy new, cheaper than upgrading components and you get the warranty.

Why? because macs obsolete a bit slower. I have a 7 year old iBook G3 that still gets used for capturing video and sorting clips in the field; the equivalent toshiba with its crappy case and expensive add-ons is already disposed of. A 4-year old machine will run OS X 10.4 fine

Re:

[ColdWetDog]

Photoshop will be an extremely tough hill to climb because there really are no other apps in the ballpark.

Perhaps true, but it would be nice if somebody did try and MS is the only other large smelly primate in the room. I'm a PS junkie (in fact an CS junkie) but there is certainly room for improvement.

I don't know what changes MS has made [to iView Media Pro, now Microsoft Expressions] but if they haven't broken its ability to quickly handle large libraries they might be able to get some traction there.

Re:

[GeckoX]

You know darned well, just as most around here, that Frontpage and Dreamweaver are not comparable products. When they were, Dreamweaver was crap too.

The comparable product from MS today is VisualStudio 2005. Not such a clear cut victory anymore when it's on fair terms is it?

But you knew that, which is why your post is flamebait.

Re:

[COMON$]

It seems that we have pissed off the moderator Gods.

But as you say Dreamweaver was crap, but it was a less smelly crap that worked for what it was meant for. Anyone wanting to do real professional work stuck with Visual Studio or notepad ;)

Re:

[GeckoX]

You're right, my bad.

VS 2005 blows Dreamweaver out of the water...not a fair comparison at all ;)

Re:

[COMON$]

Not meant for the same market, kind of like saying MS Paint should compete with Photoshop.

Re:

[COMON$]

It was an analogy of a competing market Adobe Dreamweaver vs Microsoft Frontpage, completely on topic as we are talking about the history of adobe vs MS here and whether or not MS can compete.

Colonial Aspirations of Companies

[conspirator57]

When you're the $50 billion gorilla, you get to send expeditions into many difficult markets/areas without feeling the pinch much. Who cares if you disturb the local flora and fauna? They might just accidentally win with their foray. Germs and Guns, anyone?

Of course, what happens if they wipe out the market competition and later leave the market by taking the same sort of lark that brought them there in the first place?

Re:

[Applekid]

Of course, what happens if they wipe out the market competition and later leave the market by taking the same sort of lark that brought them there in the first place?

If they succeed in wiping out the competition, they wouldn't leave since they'd be sitting on a cash cow. Innovation wouldn't exactly dry up, either, since they'd have to sell people on buying a latest greatest version so they could have growth: and you can't do that by stagnating.

Pretty strange theory, Dros

[conspirator57]

"Free" Market. I understand. I also actually read Adam Smith, who placed several caveats on his theory that make it an unattainable ideal. Holding primacy among these is the availability of perfect information. (And the unspoken addendum that the volume of perfect information must be evaluable (i.e. instantly having perfect information from the correct context.))

What we have today is, at best, mercantilism. The biggest thing you ignore in your assertion are "barriers to entry", which as any silicon val

Multiplatform Flash?

[BobPaul]

Adobe's CEO, calling Microsoft a '$50 billion monopolist,' has questioned whether Silverlight will be compatible with non-Windows operating systems

While it's certainly a valid point, I can't help remember how long it took Adobe to build Flash 9 for Linux, after first stating that Flash 7 would be the last version available. I'm just as concerned with Flash10 support for non-Windows OSs as I am Silverlight support.

Re:

[0racle]

Let them both die and the world will be a better place. I'm talking primarily about Flash and Silverlight.

I have to agree.

[khasim]

What, specifically, is Bruce Chizen's plan to support non-Microsoft OS's?

Don't bitch about how the bad monopoly is being mean to you when you aren't doing anything much to help the nascent competition.

Paying one programmer to port and support your apps on other platforms does more than all the public whining about how Microsoft is being mean.

Re:

[semiotec]

Exactly. Not to mention the still total absence of major non-free (as in beer) Adobe products (e.g. Acrobat, Photoshop-related) for Linux. They were quite happy being the "monopoly" in their areas, and as far as I know, they only really opened up the PDF spec after MS announced Metro as a direct competitor to Adobe.

They should stop complaining about MS monopoly when they are one of the major contributing factors towards preventing people moving away from MS products. Even Mac users are treated as second cla

Re:

[christurkel]

PDF has always always been an open format. They just made it open-er. I'd like them to open source flash, that way every platform on the planet will have it and solidify its dominance in the market over MS's crap.

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

Maybe. At least Adobe is just slow and/or lazy. MS has a vested interest in crippling OSes other than Windows.

Re:

[Almahtar]

"While it's certainly a valid point, I can't help remember how long it took Adobe to build Flash 9 for Linux, after first stating that Flash 7 would be the last version available. I'm just as concerned with Flash10 support for non-Windows OSs as I am Silverlight support."

Adobe never stated that Flash 7 would be the last version available for Linux. Macromedia said that. Adobe didn't own Macromedia until after Flash 8 was released, as a matter of fact.

The very first version of flash Adobe released (flash 9

Re:

[BobPaul]

Adobe never stated that Flash 7 would be the last version available for Linux. Macromedia said that. Adobe didn't own Macromedia until after Flash 8 was released, as a matter of fact.

Maybe they didn't, but Macromedia had stated they were skipping Flash 8 for Linux and stating somewhat publically in 2005 [macromedia.com]that Flash 9 would be the next to support Linux. We didn't like that, but accepted it. At least it wasn't dead. When Adobe bought them, I seem to remember a statement that Adobe had killed the Flash 9 for Linux project. It was months later before I read on an Adobe blog that they were working on it after all. It could have just been speculation and hype ("OMG! They're not going to do ano

Re:

[pressman]

And I'm sure they're really worried about the sour grapes from all 800 Flash viewing Linux users out there. Seriously, the linux faction really needs to understand that, from a business standpoint, worrying about this insanely small user base simply doesn't make sense. Now you know how it feels to be a Mac user who likes to play video games.

Re:

[Almahtar]

The difference is that since this has been in Adobe's hands we haven't seen terrible offense yet. I'm not saying we won't soon enough, but I'm saying we can't take Macromedia's bad rep and apply it to Adobe until Adobe gives us reason, and they haven't (yet).

Re:

[Khuffie]

I do believe that that bug was related to Firefox, and not Flash itself. It happened in Firefox on Windows but not in IE or Opera.

Re:

[Almahtar]

I never got it in Windows, but I did see mention of it in the changelogs at penguin.swf as being fixed, so I'm lead to believe it was specific to the Linux version. Either way it's fixed so who cares anymore :-) Water under the bridge.

Re:

[everphilski]

o really? [mono-project.com] check out pictures of Silverlight on Linux from Miguel's blog.

Mono demonstrated Silverlight support in 3 weeks. They plan on having full support, packaged nicely by the end of the year (iirc). Microsoft has stated they will support Linux, even if you are skeptical, the standard is open and anyone can implement it. The Mono project is.4

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

Microsoft has stated they will support Linux

Citations, please.

the standard is open and anyone can implement it.

To Microsoft, an 'open standard' is one in which they get to hide certain details so that only their implementation works properly, of course. In Microsoft-speak 'cross-platform' (which is a term used on the Silverlight MSDN site) means that it runs on Windows XP and on Windows Vista.

Re:

[VertigoAce]

In this case 'cross-platform' means Windows and Mac OS X. In addition, since the platform is really your web browser, it supports IE, Firefox, and Safari. See the download page [microsoft.com] for details.

Up Up Down Down Left Left Right Right B A Start?

[bluemonq]

Is that what I'll need to input in order to access the graphics-related functionality in Google Earth?

Re:Up Up Down Down Left Left Right Right B A Start

[eMartin]

No. You'll need to pony up $400 per year for Google Earth Pro.

Google Earth is a very useful tool for architects when used with SketchUp. The $400/year license for the Pro version lets you save higher quality images and gives you the right to use them in presentations and renderings.

Compatibility...

[laddy]

"Adobe's CEO ... has questioned whether Silverlight will be compatible with non-Windows operating systems"

Because I've neeever had problems with Flash on my Linux machine...

cross platform oncre and for all time

[icepick72]

Adobe's CEO, calling Microsoft a '$50 billion monopolist,' has questioned whether Silverlight will be compatible with non-Windows operating systems,

Silverlight has been cross-platform since launch. The Adobe CEO questioned whether this would persist. Microsoft didn't invest on porting a subset of the .NET framework to Mac only to deprecate it. No, Silverlight will continue to be cross-platform for long while ... especially if the marketplace stays competitive. Whether or not its optimized well enough for the other platforms, well that's another story.

Re:

[Arimus]

Does Adobe's comments smack of the pot calling the kettle black - for serious graphics work Adobe are top (only?) dog, PDF for all its faults is a defacto standard - and love it or lothe it that means so is Acrobat....

Re:

[PyroPunk]

It's cross platform from the standpoint of the browser plugin works on Windows and Mac, but to create the Silverlight content that runs you need to do it on Windows; at least at this point. Expression isn't a Mac tool. But, I can fire up Flash on Windows or Mac to create Flash content, and also use some Open Source tools on Linux to do that. I think that may be what he means on cross platform.

Re:cross platform oncre and for all time

[larien]

Microsoft didn't invest on porting a subset of the .NET framework to Mac only to deprecate it.

LMAO... Are you serious? It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they did that. They pay lip service to "cross-platform", get everyone to invest their futures in it, get locked in and then they stop maintaining it. That way, everyone now has a load of windows-only stuff that they're stuck with.

Mod parent up

[Dadoo]

That way, everyone now has a load of windows-only stuff that they're stuck with.

This is one of the reasons I think Mono is a bad idea. All Microsoft has to do is be friendly to Mono, until everyone drops their guard and decides it's okay to develop in dotNET. Then, all they need to do is start enforcing their patents, and it's all over...

Re:Mod parent up

[icepick72]

Somebody yells "patents" and everybody agrees even if no information is given, at least it's a nice sound byte to buy karma. What patents might that be? Are there any?... and how would they be used? ... aw forget it because that might lead to constructive or clear points. It's unfortunate so many people are willing to jump on a bandwagon because that's where the party is. Hey Microsoft sucks YAY!

Re:

[Dadoo]

it's a nice sound byte to buy karma

I wasn't actually trying to buy karma, or even say anything important, really, I was just trying to point out the OP to the mods, since I don't currently have any mod points. If I thought anyone would have read my post, past the title, I would have tried to be more clear. I'm as surprised as you are that I got modded up.

Re:

[icepick72]

People think Microsoft can pull any stunt at any time to tie in users. That's not the reality of the world we live in no matter how much Microsoft is disliked. It's also pure speculation which is not a solid foundation on which to discard products. Serious companies wouldn't put up with behaviour.

Soft Scissors Research Paper & Movie

[bcolflesh]

Looks like a great tool to me:

http://vis.berkeley.edu/papers/softscissors/ [berkeley.edu]

Re:

[figleaf]

Man. Thats very impressive.

Re:

[Thagg]

Indeed, the softscissors tool looks completely amazing. There is a tool called Knockout that did something like what softscissors does, but they have taken it quite a ways beyond what Knockout has done. Of course, Knockout is a "product" where softscissors is a "research program", and it will be interesting to see if there are problems with the softscissors technology that will show up if they do productize it.

Basically, what these tools do is semi-automatic matte generation. Most people are familiar wit

Correct me if I'm wrong

[fistfullast33l]

But isn't Microsoft the developer of Direct3D, which is now a premiere graphics API for anything Windows? Yes, OpenGL still is extremely important, but I just don't see why it's a surprise that Microsoft has so many researchers contributing to the field of computer graphics when they develop one of the two biggest graphics platforms in the world.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong

[TheNetAvenger]

Its not only DirectX, MS was involved with OpenGL years ago as well until the OpenGL group didn't want to target 3D hardware for gaming.

MS also has put a lot of money in research in the area of Graphics, from photo recognition to camera input device concepts, etc.

There is also the entire XBox division which has now spent years understanding graphics, rendering, and has even been instrumental in shaping the design of GPUs in NVidia and ATI cards.

XBox technology is also at the heart of the new Vista graphics subsystem. Adding features that make up DX10 and WDDM, all the way from unified Shaders to GPU RAM virtualization to OS level GPU pre-emption and physics/math support on GPUs through a standard API.

Questions Linux Support?

[TheNetAvenger]

In other related news today:

Microsoft Nurtures Linux Silverlight Port
http://www.sdtimes.com/article/LatestNews-20070801 -46.html [sdtimes.com]

I have more faith in MS and Silverlight on cross platform than I do Flash anymore after the past few years. Not only is Silverlight already available on other platforms it even supports 64bit (gasp).

And this is just the Silverlight 1.0 RC and MS doesn't expect long range use or adoption until 1.1 is finalized as it adds in massive amounts of support for web interaction and more language support. (1.1 is already in developer circles, and will be out not long after 1.0)

Also for people worried about adoption, take a look at MLB.com. There are a lot things in Silverlight especially on the programming side that Flash just can't do easily. Silverlight not only builds on Vista XAML technology for the web but also does HD quality video and can also do single feed streaming unlike Flash.

Single Feed streaming

[figleaf]

What is Single Feed streaming? Can you elaborate?

Re:

[TheNetAvenger]

Multi-Cast would have been a better team. In other words the Video Content provider only has to allocate bandwidth for 1 stream of the content even if 100,000 people are viewing the video at the same time.

This is used already in Radio on the web and is becoming more important with Video on the web with Live Broadcasting of HD content.

Basically even a small internet company could provide 100 channels of HD video content in live streams via Silverlight.

(This is what Windows Media Server technologies already d

Mod parent up

[GroundBounce]

This is basically good news. Adobe software is certainly cross platform if cross platform is defined as Windows and Mac. But Adobe has been no great track record on supporting Linux. Even Flash player and Acroread, which have had Linux support, have had big holes and delays compared to Windows and Mac.

As others have pointed out, while MS has a monopoly on PC OS and Office software, Adobe has a near monopoly on the graphics content creation market, their products are expensive, and they could certainly us

Re:

[pressman]

Adobe most certainly could use some competition, but whoever decides to charge this windmill has a big fight ahead of them as the Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Flash and AfterEffects products are are incredible. Apple, who basically sold hardware to video editors, really has been putting the fires to Avid in the NLE space and video editors could not be happier. Avid and Apple are both putting out great products as a direct result of the competition.

Quark was FORCED to finally impro

Re:Questions Linux Support?

[Dadoo]

I have more faith in MS and Silverlight on cross platform than I do Flash

Come on. You can't seriously believe Silverlight will continue to be cross-platform, after Microsoft has a large enough installed base.

Re:

[MenTaLguY]

One needn't have faith that Silverlight will continue to be cross-platform to have more faith in Silverlight's cross-platform availability than Flash's.

Re:

[Dadoo]

I dunno, Flash 9 (or is it 10?) seems to work perfectly well on my 64-bit SuSE 10.0 laptop.

Re:

[Cid Highwind]

Come on. You can't seriously believe Silverlight will continue to be cross-platform, after Microsoft has a large enough installed base.

Ask a Mac user about how well Microsoft holds up with their commitments to cross-platform apps...

Internet Explorer for Mac: canceled
WMP for Mac: canceled
Office: delayed, all support for VBA macros removed
MSN messenger: lags far behind windows version, will probably be canceled soon
Virtual PC: canceled (too hard to port from PPC OSX to x86 OSX. They still maintain the x86 Wi

If I Were Adobe

[balazsa]

If I were Adobe, I would start to push Linux products out of the door like crazy.

Yes and No.

[mpapet]

They would be very wise to do more in Linux, but it's just not likely.

1. Worked with Adobe corporate types I can tell you the riskiest thing they've done in a LONG time is choosing a new restaurant for lunch.

2. They've got the Graphic Design market easily in hand world wide. Moreover, the mere discussion of alternatives to many people that use their tools every day is a thoughtcrime. Why screw that up by validating Linux? If they offer any of their desktop publishing software on linux, then the good Free

Re:

[owlnation]

If I were Adobe, I would start to push Linux products out of the door like crazy.

I agree they should. That would make sense. However, note how long it took them to release products for Intel Macs. And note that only now they are trying to recapture some of the video editing market with Premiere Pro for Mac. I think it will be a long long time before they can get their act together for Linux.

This is a shame because this really hurts Linux. I'd love to upgrade my windows box to Linux - but I can't becaus

Re:

[Bert64]

And a lot of this is down to the lack or adobe apps being available for linux.
If adobe had ported their apps several years ago, than microsoft's position within this market would be much weaker making it a lot harder for them to force adobe out in the way they're now trying.

Re:

[vought]

Most of us would be happy for Intel/OSX native versions of Adobe/Macromedia products.


No kidding. Adobe killed Framemaker by taking it off of the Mac (after they made a half-hearted effort at porting it to Linux.

I'd love to know how many licenses they're selling now that every just uses Word (which won't work reliably for anything over about forty pages) instead.

Dreamweaver vs. Expression

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Dreamweaver may have officially jumped the shark with the Adobe acquisition. The damn install put 800 MEG of adobe bloat, a new bonjour service, and a licensing service onto my system before it laid down a single Dreamweaver directory.

And starting Dreamweaver revealed a program (unlike the CS3 suite) that looked suspiciously (almost exactly like) Dreamweaver 8. It had a new tab for Adobe's Ajax framework and it might have some new support for cold fusion which I don't need.

It can no longer be said that Dreamweaver is kick-ass, open platform, in a lightweight package. It may even be bigger than Expression!!!!!! And MS has been learning from Dreamweaver. Expression only targets .net 2.0, but Dreamweaver as done nothing but go backwards.

If I ran MS

[Bullfish]

I would be after the markets too. Also video, audio and whatever else I could get at. Some plans will pan out and some won't, but it is irresponsible (as far as the company goes) to not try to dominate such markets. It' about the money. Last time I checked, Adobe was not a registered charity.

What pisses us off most is that for a lot of computing, MS has suceeded.

dumb companies...

[Anonymous Coward]

Software application companies only develop for Windows, help MS keep their OS monopoly up, and then cry when MS decides to take those app companies' market too. They enabled it with their short sightedness.

Just desserts...

[Bert64]

It is many of these companies that, through the release of countless windows programs, many exclusively for windows, that have helped microsoft get to where they are today.
Did they really believe that microsoft wouldn't move in on their territory sooner or later?

Why mention 4-month old Adobe Silverlight quotes?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"Adobe's CEO, calling Microsoft a '$50 billion monopolist,' has questioned whether Silverlight will be compatible with non-Windows operating systems [computerworld.com]..."

That Adobe "monopolist" quote is 4 months old. Did that quote really need to be dragged out again for this story?
(BTW, Adobe has some nerve calling someone else a "monopolist" when Adobe tried to collude with MS in price fixing to protect its own Office to PDF export monopoly (Adobe proposed that MS could include PDF export functionality in Office 2k7 if MS up'ed the price so as not to undercut Adobe's Office PDF-export tools.))

And Silverlight is already working on Macs, so the question of Silverlight being "compatilble with non-Windows operating systems" is more 4-month old FUD.

The submitter should've just gone with the story at hand, not dig up a 4-month old story about Adobe's fears of competing with Silverlight.

Adobe barks about MS Monopoly? WTF?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Adobe is a monopoly unto itself!

Image editing? Photoshop. Sure there's GIMP, but frankly, GIMP sucks and has no value outside of RGB colour space. There are a few other apps, (Painter, Corel, etc.) but the POINT is: pros use Photoshop because it is the best. Period.

Bezier Curve? Illustrator. There used to be a better app, Freehand, but it died in the Macromedia acquisition.

Page Layout? Sure, there's Quark, but everyone HATES Quark, and InDesign does the job. So, that's not a monopoly, yet...

Web Design? Dreamweaver. nuff said.

Web based animation? Flash.

Adobe completely dominates the graphic design industry, and for Adobe to make noises about MS being some kind of a monopoly is simply ludicrous.

RS

Re:

[HonkyLips]

I don't disagree with you, but in my experiece Adobe software has been great, so I've never complained- or even thought of Adobe as an evil monopoly. Microsoft doesn't have a good reputation for software quality and it's easy to find stories of Microsoft bugs seriousing affecting user's workflow, or simply their ability to do their job. I'm basically a professional After Effects user and I've never come across a bug in the application which has prevented me from doing my job, or working to a professional

Re:

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

krita supports CMYK and is a much better app than gimp. KDE FTW!

feel free to flame me to death now.

Re:

[pressman]

No need to flame. Congratulations! Welcome to 1992!

Re:

[pressman]

I'm sorry, but Freehand was garbage compared to Illustrator after AI7 hit the market. AI8 is what officially killed Freehand. Freehand peaked at version 5.5 and then languished in the "complement Flash" area until it finally met it's well deserved end in the Adobe acquisition.

Freehand was a legacy Aldus app. It tried to be an illustration AND page layout program and was not terribly well suited to either task. I've worked in multimedia, design and print shops and we always cringed when we were handed a mult

what now?

[superwiz]

Microsoft (as a monopolist) will stifle innovation by (what in this case seems to be) innovating?

other non-windows OSs?

[kaizokuace]

Hey Adobe! There are other OS's that OS X and Windows! Make your stuff work in Linux! ALL of it! I seriously hope that M$ creating this stuff will cause adobe to make their suites for Linux. I don't care if its closed source I just don't wanna have to use windows for graphics stuff anymore! I wanna use my 64bit processor for reals! And then I hope other popular art packages move to Linux and then the world will be safer and those Dell PC's with Ubuntu installed will be worth something to some people! Some

Re:

[pressman]

Face it. You're not in their target market. If you and the others want to play with the good graphics apps currently out... you have 2 options. Work in Windows on your cheap ass homemade or cheap ass Dell box and grumble about it's performance or fork out and get a real graphics production machine... otherwise known as a Mac. The Mac is the domain of the graphics world... Windows can keep it's gaming dominance and Linux can retain it's dominance in... well, keeping hardcore geeks happy... we Macheads will a

speed of productionizing research

[peter303]

I've mentioned MicroSoft's SIGGRAPH prowess several times in earlier threads. I'm glad they are starting to get results out into products. I asked this of a DirectX MicroSoft Developer at an earlier SIGGRAPH. He said the slowness was due to internal company politics. The people working on conventional products (such as that developer) view many of the researchers as pampered prima-donas and shy away from using their results. I've seen this happen in other companies too.

PS: SIGGRAPH is most fun conference

[peter303]

I've attended many conferences in computer science and the physical sciences (I develop visualization tools for the energy industry) and I have to say SIGGRAPH is hands-down the most fun conference I attend. SIGGRAPH includes core graphics, advanced hardware, and special techniques used for movies and video games. This year there were several "how they did it" sessions from major movie studios. The young F/X Turks get up and expalin their amazing tricks to adulation of the audience. You can skim the exhibits and showrooms for a day for less than hundred dollars or listen to mathematically intense courses and papers all week.

2007 San Diego conference ended today. Los Angeles in 2008! (Big party city with all the studios)

MS is spreading itself too thin if you ask me

[HeavyDevelopment]

Microsoft has too many battles going on. The list is long--MS vs Sony/NES, MS vs the Linux/Open source community, MS vs Apple iPod, MS vs Google, etc.. Now MS want to take on Adobe/Macromedia? In the end I think that this is a losing proposition for them. In fact it already might be happening. Their core product, the Windows OS, had a launch that was lackluster at best and Office had a little better reception than that. And it took them, what 5 years, to get it to market? Now they want to get into the graph

Fight

[icepick72]

Someone's gotta' ward off the Adobe/Macromedia juggernaut. Only goliaths can take on each other. In the meantime instead of watching the fight the open source community can try to push its products up some notches. It would be interesting to think of scenarios about how to go about doing this. Is there a such thing as "open marketing"?

Re:

[TheNetAvenger]

Considering Silverlight can be written literally in notepad or XAMLpad, this will put a big dent in Adobe's premium development tool costs that are required for Flash and Web content creation.

Re:

[klngarthur]

you could make flash files with notepad or your IDE of choice using the flex 2 compiler which is free.

Re:

[pressman]

If the price of Adobe software is too much for you... you really don't need it. In my line of work. All I need is one solid day of paid work, and I've recouped my investment. The quality of their software allows me to recoup my investment many times over before the next upgrade cycle. If Photoshop is too damn expensive for your tastes, you don't need it... your business doesn't require it because you can't recoup the expense using it. Go play with GIMP in the kiddies corner and leave real image editing to t

Re:

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Oh, shut up.

BTW, iWork '08, which Apple just released supports OOXML. So stop with the OOXML == lock-in FUD.

Look into Flex and even AIR.

[JackAxe]

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex:Open_Sou rce [adobe.com] http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo [adobe.com] These are still new, but Macrobe is making sure these are all cross platform. With Flex you can create Flash content. You just need to know how to do Action Script.