Comments on: Silverlight and Apollo: The Creation Tools Will Matter

By: Ryan Stewart

Ryan Stewart — Wed, 09 May 2007 19:20:15 +0000

Steve, this is a fantastic post. Great perspective and excellent analysis. I think this might be one of my favorites of yours

By: PXLated

PXLated — Fri, 04 May 2007 04:02:15 +0000

My dream is Apple buys Adobe, streamlines everything (Adobe has become bloatware) and does to web/print creation what they’ve done for video/audio with products up and down the consumer/pro lines.
As a side note, I’ve heard Adobe has a big problem in that they have their own internal cross platform dev environment that doesn’t allow them to really take advantage of the underlying Mac or Windows technology. Sounded like a good idea back 10 years but is hindering them now. Don’t know if it’s true but does make some sense.

By: Steve Borsch

Steve Borsch — Wed, 02 May 2007 18:17:22 +0000

Gregg and KC — I do think MSFT has a leg up with understanding the entire value chain of creating and delivering apps. Unfortunately they have to serve everyone. Every developer; all the I.T. folks in every company; the OEM’s that load the OS on their machines; the ecosystem that needs their drivers on everything.

The beauty of the Internet platform and virtual OS manifested in Web 2.0 is that the possibility of serving everyone will get easier. Unfortunately design, beauty, creativity, and artistry always takes a back seat to the functionality. Function-over-form is key.

One example: how many times have you watched a Powerpoint presentation and a single sentence wordwraps but the second line is automatically indented? There is some buried, obscure toggle that makes turning that off seemingly impossible for most users. It’s a little thing, but I cringe in 90% of all the slideshows I sit through since it looks like sh*t and always has. This sort of non-obvious bit twiddling is what drives anyone who designs frickin’ crazy and MSFT is deaf and blind to subtleties and nuances like this. Adobe understands that designers want pixel-level control and the tools to get great results.

As you pointed out trust is also a huge issue. Anyone I know who designs uses a Mac so unless the tools to create these Expression apps are high design; high control; and places 10x benefit in the hands of designers, they won’t even use them with BootCamp or Parallels (IMHO).

By: kcmarshall

kcmarshall — Wed, 02 May 2007 17:57:36 +0000

You are dead on: this will be an interesting battle of ecosystems.

Don’t forget that many of the creatives who drive Adobe products for a living hold strongly negative attitudes towards the Microsoft ecosystem. I doubt you can pay top creative talent enough $$ to switch over to a Microsoft toolset.

Adobe _will_ need to provide developers the ability to get their job done and to integrate development workflow with creative workflow. They will be forced to be “open” about this – supporting .NET, java and LAMP technologies equally.

With a web culture of individual publishing and participation waiting to jump on board, Adobe could have a distinct advantage if they can join – and not try to own – the conversation.

By: Gregg Morris

Gregg Morris — Wed, 02 May 2007 17:35:45 +0000

Steve,

I couldn’t agree more with what you’ve said. However, even if Adobe does hook the designer tools to Apollo, don’t you think that Microsoft still has a leg up with the breadth of development languages that Silverlight supports? I’m surprised that this hasn’t been played up more than it has.