Unless you’ve been in a coma or hiding under a rock, you know all about Apple not including Adobe’s Flash technology into Apple’s various mobile devices. The iPad is the latest and seems to be the straw that boke the camel’s back in the tech press. The
Apple came out with Aperture. It’s not Adobe’s Lightroom, but apparently it’s good enough for many users (I don’t use either myself). What Adobe is probably asking itself during this fracus is whether it would be worth it to push Apple really hard to try and get them to drop their obvious anti-Flash bias. Apple has shown in the past that if push comes to shove, they’ll either buy or come out with competing products in just about any genre of software.
Photoshop and many of the other elements of CS4 are the industry standards on both the Mac and Windows. If Adobe dropped support of the Mac and Apple followed it with CS4-like software (as they did when Microsoft took a really long time to get Office 2008 out the door with iWork) it could potentially split the market between those dedicated enought to Adobe products (that are using Macs) to switch to Windows PCs (bad for Apple) and those who decide that Adobe products are too expensive and stay with the Mac with iCS4 (Bad for Adobe). File compatibility would have to be a given as it was with iWork.
Apple would lose some Mac sales (especially with their heavy iron Mac Pros), but given that more people are buying Macs for the home now as compared to the old days where the pro market was the lifeline keeping the Mac alive, who would be hurt worse in this contest? Even if only 25% switched to Windows PCs, Adobe takes the bigger hit. Keep in mind as well that Apple’s attention is no longer strictly on the Mac. Between iPods, iPhones, and iTunes, Apple is rolling in dough and a minor drop in market-share for the Mac (the Mac Pro is hardly their biggest seller) would likely not affect them nearly as much as it would have 5 to 10 years ago.
A good example would Avid. They owned the Pro video market and made a decision to drop Mac support. Apple bought one of their competitors and came out with Final Cut. Between Final Cut Express and Studio, Apple is now a much bigger player in the pro and prosumer video market than Avid is.
Adobe is not filled with idiots and their management is just as aware of all this as I am. Pushing the nuke option would be the stupiest thing they could do. Apple management is not stupid either. As long as Adobe keeps putting out CS-whatever at the same or nearly so time for the Mac as with Windows, I don’t think they’ll push too hard either. Apple is also aware of how precarious their position may be if they bought out Adobe and ended Windows support (or made versions without key features) and for that reason alone I think the article is wrong. Apple most likely will not try to aquire Adobe.
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