Sorry, Adobe, you screwed yourself

[Fakejohnsculley]

very interesting read.

from the article:

Sorry, Adobe, you screwed yourself


In 1996 when Apple was seemingly on the ropes, Adobe made a crucial business decision and one that is coming back to bite them in the ass. They declared that their primary development platform would be Windows; subsequently, every new application or major revision of a product was introduced for Windows first and followed months later, sometimes never at all, by a Mac version.

After Steve Jobs took over and he was charting out a new course with OS X, Apple reached out many times to Abode to introduce a native version of their suite for the new OS. Adobe never committed – standing by its prediction that OS X would never gain momentum or share and it would ride the Windows ascendancy. Adobe thought that it had the dominant hand and displayed its arrogance in public.

http://innerdaemon.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/sorry-adobe-you-screwed-yourself/

 

[Queso]

To be fair on Adobe...

Microsoft spent a lot of time and effort convincing companies to abandon Mac support and develop solely for Windows about that time. The FUD machine was out in full force about the death of Apple, the superiority of Windows Media over QuickTime, the necessity of Internet Explorer, etc.. Many companies fell for it, and it was only Apple's own efforts to plug the gaps in the products that were dropped with their own software that kept the Mac surviving in the creative sphere until OSX matured and the Intel transition brought the customers flooding back.

Adobe were duped.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Worthless piece of emotionally driven fanboy fluff, IMO. Apple and Adobe aren't siblings or BFF's they are businesses and Adobe wasn't the only company that hitched their wagon to Windows when Apple was circling the drain. And what about switching to a completely new OS, having stagnating CPUs thanks to Moto, switching over to intel, and most recently all of the under the hood changes w/Snow Leopard? Apple's been a moving target the better part of the last decade yet some people still expect 3rd parties to cater to Apple's every whim?

4 years since Nack’s decision, Apple is clicking on all cylinders – it has not only reinforced its dominance in the creative graphics segment but also the web development platform, the mobile development platform and content delivery. Adobe’s not feeling too good about their dominance or that primary development platform choice any more. Are they?

Apple's *hardware* sales to the creative gfx market competes w/Adobe's *software* sales how? Adobe doesn't care if you run Windows or OS X as long as you use their software products.

Adobe had multiple chances to prove their worth to Apple and they failed miserably. They ignored the OS X version of Flash. They ignored Photoshop – witness the rise of Acorn, Pixelmator etc.

The rise of Acorn and Pixelmator, really?


Lethal

 

[FX120]

And man, here I was thinking Adobe just got done doing a complete rewrite of Photoshop in Cocoa so it could run in 64-bit mode, after Apple decided on a whim that they were going to discontinue support for Carbon-64 after Adobe had just finished getting CS4 ready...

What a piece of trash article. Apple is one of the most developer unfriendly companies out there, you can't blame Abobe for not pouring tons of resources into product development on a platform which is rapidly changing.

 

[rhett7660]

Interesting read. I liked the last few paragraphs, minus the last sentence:

4 years since Nack’s decision, Apple is clicking on all cylinders – it has not only reinforced its dominance in the creative graphics segment but also the web development platform, the mobile development platform and content delivery. Adobe’s not feeling too good about their dominance or that primary development platform choice any more. Are they?

Adobe had multiple chances to prove their worth to Apple and they failed miserably. They ignored the OS X version of Flash. They ignored Photoshop – witness the rise of Acorn, Pixelmator etc.

Sorry, Adobe, you screwed yourself. You made a business decision in 1996 to screw Apple when it needed you most to gain credibility for its fledgling OS with the creative crowd. Somehow, Apple making a business decision to protect its customers from your ****** product is the most egregious ethical concern of our time.

How about Adobe start fixing their relationship with the Apple community one step at a time: fix Flash for the desktop and then we can chat about the iPhone, iPad and i….

Adobe made a wrong bet in 1996 and is suffering the consequences in 2010 and has no one to blame except themselves. It’s Adobe’s turn to show that it matters to Apple and the tech industry. I don’t remember Apple or Steve Jobs whining in 1996-2006 about Adobe not contributing to the Apple ecosystem.

I think the part that is in bold can go both ways.

 

[miles01110]

The rise of Acorn and Pixelmator, really?

Seriously. Credibility went to zero after I read that one. Last I checked, you "Photoshop" something... not "Pixelmate" it.

 

[maflynn]

That article has more holes then swiss cheese.

I see little to no correlation to adobe's decisions back in 1996 is messing with the apple/adobe relationship today.

Adobe in riding the windows bandwagon has made a boatload of money, more money if they stayed on the mac platform.

The issues today with adobe is flash, and how buggy of an app it is, not because they chose not to embrace OSX back when apple was sinking fast.

I bet if adobe was able to resolve a number of the stability/performance issues with flash 2 years ago, even last year we'd not be having this discussion.

Yeah adobe was being lazy and/or arrogant thinking that the flash platform would not be affected but look what's happening. Its not on the iPhone, it was delayed indefinitely on the palm webos. It seems to be delayed on android. Reasons for the delay are stability and battery life.

So the issue isn't as much as adobe spurning apple 16 years ago but one of their current products being poorly written and poorly maintained.