Against Apple, Ballmer Floats Microsoft Merger With Adobe 520
Ebbesen writes "Ballmer had a meeting with the CEO of Adobe, and among other things: 'The meeting, which lasted over an hour, covered a number of topics, but one of the main thrusts of the discussion was Apple and its control of the mobile phone market and how the two companies could partner in the battle against Apple. A possible acquisition of Adobe by Microsoft were among the options.' Apparently MS has courted Adobe previously, but feared anti-trust regulations. With Google and Apple gaining, Microdobe might be possible."
Bleeeechhhh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bleeeechhhh (Score:4, Funny)
Doubtless Microsoft-Adobe's first product line, to be followed by Shit-In-A-Dish 2.0 (they'll start the version there to underline just how unique this new collaborative technology is).
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As 3\/1l as this may seem, this might even be a good thing from a security point of view. The MS-guys have made huge steps the last decade in improving their security processes. We all get a monthly mea culpa and a bunch of fixes. This can only but improve the track record of Adobe.
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Now I seriously want Microsoft to do this.
Pretty much what I was thinking as well. Not sure how that is a troll, as I thought it was fairly well thought out with some attention to detail. It wouldn't be hard to get the majority of people (RGB) who now pirate Photoshop to use Gimp if you could get it up to Photoshop 6 quality. Hell, I do commercial work all day now using Photoshop 6, as I haven't needed a reason to upgrade. As you likely know, piracy leads to sales. Microsoft used to know this, but of c
Re:Bleeeechhhh (Score:4, Funny)
Well, you see, your problem there is you're drinking bleeeechhhh. That would make anyone vomit.
Cheers,
Re:Bleeeechhhh (Score:5, Funny)
Microdobe might be possible
I think they meant Microbe (pronounced my-CROW-bee). If you had some of that in your coffee that'll make you puke like a pro.
Re:Bleeeechhhh (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, what?
Re:Bleeeechhhh (Score:5, Funny)
Microbee? Didn't you die in the '80s?
Microbe (Score:4, Informative)
The Microbee was a home computer from Australia in the early 80s. With a merger between Microsoft and Adobe, they may just catch its performance.
Re:Bleeeechhhh (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine the power of Microsoft's experience in insecure bloat, and Adobes undisputed skill in...owning Flash, we can look forward to bloated, insecure flash.
Wait, what?
Re:Bleeeechhhh (Score:4, Insightful)
Among the "top 10" for insecure software products, I can see the pack leaders are Windows, Acrobat PDF plugins, and Flash. Such a merger sounds like a match made in heaven.
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Yes, this is a slashdot and MS bashing is the name of the game, but Adobe is so much worse than MS that this merger can only be a net gain for end users.
Not bashing, just watching the blind leading the blind...
It already exists... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called Silverlight.
Re:It already exists... (Score:5, Funny)
No, it's Flashlight.
Re:It already exists... (Score:4, Funny)
No, it's Fleshlight.
Fixed that for you.
Re:Bleeeechhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, and they can get rid of that stupid cross-platform support too!
Are you kidding? On the contrary, Microsoft wants Windows everywhere, so Ballmer must realize the only way to do this now is to run Windows inside Flash!
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from that angle some secret sponsorship from intel is probably likely, just think of the cpu load of a version of flash developed by MS
Re:Bleeeechhhh (Score:5, Funny)
I just vomited in my coffee.
--
Facebook is the new AOL
You signature just made me snort iced tea up my nose as I laughed.
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All that's missing is "YOU'VE GOT MAIL!"
Wait a minute...I think I just came up with a good idea for a Facebook application.
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$SO_AND_SO has invited you to join $GAME!
Efficient (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft and Adobe merging is an option that would increase efficiency. That way I can direct my hatred in one direction with less distraction from various evil companies.
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OK, if you Don't Wanna Be Evil, how about
Google? [wsj.com] They've got even more interest in Flash-on-mobile as a stopgap against Apple World Domination as Microsoft does, and could probably write a PDF viewer in less than 100 megabytes.
GooDobeSoft
How convenient (Score:5, Insightful)
How convenient (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>One less company to hate.
"Arrogance and stupidity all in the same package. How efficient of you."
Micro and Macro? (Score:4, Funny)
Adobe bought Macromedia back in distant times, so if Microsoft buy Adobe, won't that make them Micromacrobe?
Re:Micro and Macro? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The micro and macro cancel each other out so the merged company will call themselves Softmediadobe.
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Possible Security Improvements? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh God, I so hope this happens. Microsoft may have a bad reputation for security, but quite honestly nothing is as big a nightmare for IT than anything and everything Adobe. Reader, Flash, CS... it's all a perpetual pain in the butt that Adobe always drops the ball with deployment and maintenance.
Plus maybe then we can stop every MS site from needing SilverLight and every MS application installing an XPS Viewer/Printer.
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Plus maybe then we can implement future Flash versions on top of Silverlight and phase out PDF in favor of XPS.
FTFY
Wrong way (Score:5, Insightful)
Enjoy your new all Silverlight Photoshop.
So.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So.... (Score:5, Funny)
Microdobe? (Score:3, Informative)
Microdobe? Please.
If Adobe is lucky, they will be "Adobe, an independently managed subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation".
More likely, Adobe + Microsoft = Microsoft.
Double the evil, double the fun.
Mac Creative Suite Users Ever Where Twitch (Score:4, Insightful)
It's bad enough Mac users still have to install MS Office because it won't really interoperate with things like iWork or open office. Now imagine all those Mac creative types experiencing the pain of a MS-owned and focused Adobe.
I have to say, this is a crazy time to be in IT, software, and the mobile space. It's almost reminiscent of the chaos of the dot-com days: constant tech churn, companies rising and falling, etc. Hopefully we can avoid the bubble part ;-)
I wouldn't want to be the poor shlub... (Score:3, Funny)
... that has to get Ballmer's sweat stains out of the furniture in that meeting room!
Re:I wouldn't want to be the poor shlub... (Score:4, Funny)
I wouldn't want to be the one to get Ballmer's furniture out of the walls of the meeting room . . .
Flash for Linux? (Score:4, Interesting)
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That trainwreck would make me.... (Score:2)
....giggle like a schoolgirl.
I don't see much of Adobe products surviving. (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft has replaced postscript with XPS. IE and Silverlight can display XPS, so goodbye Acrobat. Silverlight does video and RIA. Goodbye Flash. Expression Blend can do what Illustrator does, although it's not as mature.
And with no one giving MS a chance of succeeding in the mobile space, the time may be right to sidestep antitrust issues.
Microsoft gets a migration path from Adobe to Silverlight. Adobe shareholders get $$$'s and not uncertainty.
The uncertainty will come from the government.
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Re:I don't see much of Adobe products surviving. (Score:5, Insightful)
If they can eliminate Adobe from the competition, then Apple is the only target left. Ballmer doesn't care at all whether CS, Flash, Acrobat, or mobile devices succeed. He only cares about shareholder profitability. We outsiders will guess and post on slashdot but it won't affect the outcome at all. If the deal goes through, Adobe will fade away.
Personally, I like Adobe's past, though they've made some serious errors starting around 2001. It may be time to close up shop. I wonder.
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Yeah, but MS Paint doesn't quite -yet- match Photoshop. ;-)
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The whole reason Silverlight exists is because flash is not Microsoft. Break every browser flash game by going Silverlight only? Microsoft is not that stupid, if they owned flash then they'd be all over it. Same with most other of Adobe's apps, pretty much everything in their Creative Suite has much higher brand recognition than Microsoft's products.
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Break every flash browser game today? Probably not.
Stop development work on Flash, let it flounder and then when IE 11 comes out with a new plugin architecture (which oh-what-a-shame means Flash no longer runs) kill it altogether? I wouldn't bet against something like that.
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Microsoft has replaced postscript with XPS. IE and Silverlight can display XPS, so goodbye Acrobat. Silverlight does video and RIA. Goodbye Flash. Expression Blend can do what Illustrator does, although it's not as mature.
Please don't confuse offering really bad alternatives with replacing things.
Microsoft's been introducing alternatives for years but even in the 90s most companies doing multimedia and pagination knew better and continued to buy Apple as that's always the area that
Microsoft has never offered anything remotely approaching the functionality of Display PostScript for its operating systems (I still get times even now when I'm working on a client's machine when the OS has problems loading because the resolut
XPS shows what is wrong with MS (Score:5, Interesting)
XPS shows everything wrong with MS, even with a rival (!) like Adobe.
They come up with a "document" standard and yet they didn't even ship a viewer (let alone some virtual printer) for OS X. I am not even mentioning Linux support which is big deal on corporate. I don't want to cost anyone their job at that weirdo company so not giving any examples but it seems, they do create a lot of docs on OS X, export to PDF (or PS), re-export to XPS on a Windows machine/bot.
That is supposed to be Microsoft's answer to PDF. Just imagine if XPS really replaced PDF. It wouldn't be a nice day for anyone not using Windows on Desktop/Mobile. I am not even sure if there is an official XPS viewer for Windows 7 Mobile.
I got creative friends and imagine my surprise when I find out about "Expression" software, as I am not in that segment, I asked them and they -too- didn't have a clue about that software. They had a good laugh when they heard they are supposed to use "that thing" (their words) to do work for Silverlight. You know, in dream World of MS (and Ballmer), designers even use MS Visual Studio and OS X using designers install Eclipse to do Silverlight. Yea, right.
So, at long last the truth comes out (Score:2, Funny)
Fine wit-it, if they put .NET back in Dreamweaver (Score:2)
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ColdFusion used to be great. When it was just owned by Allaire. Then MacroMedia walks into the picture, buys Allaire and starts putting out buggy ColdFusion releases. Then Adobe buys MacroMedia and people thought they would handle ColdFusion better, but soon found out that all they really were doing was cramming Flash in it to make it even buggier and bloated.
I love CFML, but I haven't used Adobe's ColdFusion in over 2 years. Railo and BlueDragon for me.
microdobe (Score:2)
If this happened, the merged company should be called Adobe. MS would do best to try to leave it's past behind. And it's present.
Death of Flash (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh Crap! (Score:2)
When these two bloated behemoths merge, a black hole will inevitably form... and my job is just on the other side of Lake Washington, at UW. There's no way we'll escape from the gravitational well!
I think I'm gonna call in sick on the day they sign the merger papers.
Okay, I'm siding with Jobs for once (Score:2)
Clearly, any potential merger makes for a damn good reason to keep Flash off the iPhone, and support HTML 5. Platform neutrality is rather important here.
PDF in Office (Score:2)
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Office for Mac can because on OS X anything that can be printed can be turned into a PDF.
Re:PDF in Office (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I know, that is not correct. PDF is an open format, and anyone can write software to create PDF's without needing a licence from Adobe. The reason PDF export isn't built into MS Office is because MS decided not to do it.
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They each have an OS (Score:2)
So will adobe reader be rebadged as windows 8?
Incompetence Multiplied (Score:5, Insightful)
Two large, lumbering companies with zero agility that have coasted for a decade on their successful products from the 90s and failed with everything since, decide to become one larger company that's less agile, less creative, and even less likely to do something game changing or even newly profitable.
Yeah, that's some scary competition. What did Bill Gates say so many years ago? Something like "We didn't want to become IBM"? Well, IBM, in a corporate sense, has become far more dynamic than MS is today. Don't see a merger with Adobe changing that.
Doubtful (Score:5, Insightful)
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WP7 development platform is Silverlight - any WP7 app is either a Silverlight app or an XNA app.
That said, it makes sense to try to draw an existing large pool of developers which have so far been not particularly well accommodated by other mobile platforms. Especially if your competitors are so much ahead of you there, and it's going to be a very hard struggle uphill.
Bad idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm not a Mac user myself, but my very first thought of this whole thing was of my friends who DO use Mac systems... and that if Microsoft + Adobe happens, then what will happen to Photoshop and other Adobe based products on the Mac platforms?
Re:Sure. (Score:4, Insightful)
EG: Microsoft Office for Mac
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The same thing that is happening now. Adobe products on the mac aren't all that great anymore.
You can blame Apple and their constantly changing direction for that. How can you add in new features if you have to rewrite the core of the software just to account for Apple's newest platform changes? Adobe is still catching up after Apple yanked 64-bit Carbon support out from under them.
Re:Sure. (Score:5, Informative)
Boo-freakin-hoo! Apple told developers ten years ago that Carbon was just a bridge to the new OS and that Cocoa was the way to go. Adobe knew full well that sooner or later, carbon applications were going to be second-class citizens; and spent the last ten years with their heads in the sand about it.
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When Apple did their 180 and pulled the rug out from under not only Adobe, but many other developers, it's their that they were expecting what was advertised? They spent money towards that Carbon 64-bit, and Apple screwed them. Seeing how Apple has been treating Flash like a dirty condom, I can't help but wonder if Apple planned it this way. Final Cut vs Premiere. Aperture vs Lig
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They perhaps don't care about security and but they are masters of software bloat !
Their programs are insanely huge.
LOL (Score:2)
I can't believe you just used "fleshlight" in the same sentence as "experience and understanding"
Re:First post! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First post! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First post! (Score:5, Interesting)
Halo originally wasn't ever intended to be an XBox game. Back in those days, Bungie was a Mac-only game company.
Then Bungie publicly showed a demo of an early alpha version in action. M$ saw it and decided they wanted to have it as an exclusive for the new console they were developing.
To Mac users it was like Halo was stolen before it even left the womb.
Re:First post! (Score:4, Informative)
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Bungie was a, or perhaps the , well-known Mac-friendly game developer...
When I think Mac-friendly game developer, the first name that springs to mind is Blizzard.
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At the time we're talking about, though, Blizzard was "Those guys that made Lost Vikings and Warcraft 1."
Microsoft bought Bungie around 2000 from memory. Blizzard was far more than just Warcraft 1 by that stage.
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Re:First post! (Score:5, Insightful)
If Adobe cuts off OS X versions of their professional tools like Photoshop, they will be losing about 50% of their customers.
OR Apple may lose them. Adobe still holds a lot of clout in that area.
Given that Adobe hasn't upgraded to Cocoa (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that Adobe hasn't upgraded to Cocoa precisely because they don't want to orphan people's libraries of existing photoshop plugins (which Adobe is terrified might cause them to switch to a different piece of software, if they're going to have to re-buy everything anyway), I doubt people will switch to a different OS and force that same re-buy on themselves voluntarily.
Microsoft has crippled Office on the Mac by not providing MS Access and binary compatible automation piece to let people build their own
Re:First post! (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to software like Flash, AfterEffects, Illustrator, etc., becoming an expert user of the application software is orders of magnitude harder than learning a new OS.
Also, if you use any of the aforementioned software packages professionally, the value of time and money spent learning the software and developing a productive workflow is far in excess of hardware and OS costs. This becomes especially true as you integrate custom application-specific scripts into your workflow and build up a library of project templates and other application-specific assets.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why? Photoshop is a drop in the bucket compared to Office, and there's still a Mac version for that. There's no long term strategy in shutting off a good portion of your user base...what, do you think they don't like money? Believe what you will, but Microsoft is not "evil" in the classic sense of the word. What we declare "evil" is really banal decision making to maximize profits for shareholders.
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Try the Mac version and get back to us. It is crippled, try using excel services for one.
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People would continue pirating them pretty much at will?
Re:First post! (Score:5, Funny)
This is horrifiyng news. What would happen to Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign?
They would all get 'ribbons' and Clippy.
Hey there! (Score:5, Funny)
It looks like you're trying to edit that spring break photo with that guy you thought was a chick.
Would you like help?
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Except for people running OSX, those products might be cancelled and any non-OSX non-windows flash would instantly be killed.
Re:First post! (Score:5, Interesting)
There wouldn't be any name change for Microsoft - the brand is far too valuable. Adobe would cease to exist; or rather they would become a subsidiary and only funnel money to Microsoft.
They have very few competing products, which is great for the customers of both. There would be far more integration, very little product loss.
It would be great to see Flash take on some of Silverlight's power and ease of development. Combining the best of the two would create a very worthy foe. Coldfusion has long had a few features that ASP should have had. FrameMaker could lend a hand to Word, and Visio could become an addin to FrameMaker...as all three are used very much when writing technical books.
After the scare Adobe received earlier this year at the hands of Apple, Adobe must realize at any time Apple holds the power in their relationship. Although Adobe is responsible for Apple's early dominance in the graphic and motion industry, Apple no longer needs them. In terms of sales, Adobe has always made most of their money supporting Microsoft's operating system.
Lately both companies have seen innovation only in the form of acquisitions of smaller, more nimble companies. Whatever they choose, they need to do it before the slide starts.
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If I could get FrameMaker at a good price, I'm for it!
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Who knows what is left on the OS X dev side of Apple to make their own graphics suite?
Anything on the open market?
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Personally, as a designer, I'm completely sick of Adobe's bloated crap. Between Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver, you would think they could produce an integrated product that could easily design and build a website. You would be wrong. It USED to be easy, before CS. Now it's crap. They keep adding features, but they completely fail to address even the most basic levels of the production process.
I would LOVE to see some of Apple's UI mojo thrown on a project like that.