Newsmaker: Adobe sees its future on the Web

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So where do you stand with a hosted version of Photoshop?
Chizen: It's an obvious place for us to go. There are a lot of online photo editors, so we want it to be deserving of the Photoshop brand. We want it to be a good app. I'd be shocked if we didn't have something in the next three to six months. It would surprise me.

What's surprising is that Photoshop Elements, at $99, is a significant revenue producer for Adobe. Even though you can get Picasa for free, people still want a full-featured product. Not as fully featured as Photoshop, but something in between. So people are buying Photoshop Elements. The question is, what is the demand for a host-based product, how much editing can you really do with a host-based product? Picasa is still a desktop app. So you're talking about a host-based image editor, and you don't want latency to be an issue for the user, so it's harder in some ways than a video Remix product.

The question becomes: how much for a host-only app--which we think some people will want--will we be limited (in) the amount of functionality due to bandwidth speeds? Even though bandwidth is increasing, the pipes are getting filled with video, so the user experience will likely stay the same for the next three to five years, I suspect. So is there a scenario where Photoshop Elements gets more hybrid features? Yes. Is there still a need for a host-based image editor? Yes, but it's going to be limiting to some degree.

So what will your Photoshop product lineup look like?
We'll have host-based, free, ad-driven Photoshop Elements with some host-based functionality, Lightroom for organization, and Photoshop for the serious image editors. And suites with a combination of tools.

What do you see as the most exciting technology coming out of Adobe these days?
Chizen: What's most exciting to me is Apollo. I think we, or someone else, gets to change the landscape of the Web. The way information is displayed on the Web today is kind of archaic. You can't express brand. You can't integrate graphics appropriately. Despite the fact that you have multiple media types, it's not as elegant as a newspaper or a magazine, in terms of look and feel, yet there is so much more capability.

The way information is displayed on the Web today is kind of archaic. You can't express brand. You can't integrate graphics appropriately.

Through Apollo, we get to express that capability through rich Internet apps. That's exciting for the Web; it's exciting for Adobe. It means a lot to our business and to anybody who is creating Internet applications, whether it's a consumer app or a B2B app, B2C app, government app, even internal applications. Something like 61 percent of all information we see gets ignored. That's a lot of information that gets created and dismissed, because we are exposed to too much information. The challenge for anybody who is communicating to anyone has gone up. It needs to look good, interactive, engaging, reliable and secure. We have an opportunity to provide in Apollo all of that.

So for the average user, what will Apollo applications look like?
Chizen: It works like a (desktop) app. There's an icon and you click on it to start it like any application. For instance, we have shown an eBay application (built with Apollo). It looks and feels like eBay, the way eBay wants to be expressed. You are not distracted by the browser. You're not limited by the browser, so you have transparency, you have the ability to have the eBay logo come out of the window itself. You have the ability to have the application look the same across platforms, or you can have it look more consistent with the platform, if that's what you choose. You have the ability to do offline activities if you want to prepare for an auction or capture images or use a Webcam.

You can do all of that without even being connected. And yet, when you are connected all of the buying and selling activity takes place through a user interface that is much more pleasing and engaging to the user.

Another example is Amazon. If you want to buy something from Amazon you might have a watch list. Instead of being notified by e-mail, you might have a desktop app that sends you notification when your item is available and you can buy and sell through that application.

Yet another example is a mortgage application. First of all, a lot of people don't want to do that online. The bank needs the requirements of a PDF, but the user wants a much more engaging experience in which to fill out the application. You probably want real-time charting so you know how much you will pay given a certain interest rate. You can do all of that offline with some apps provided by Fidelity (Home Mortgage) or Wells Fargo. I don't think that we at Adobe realize how many things can be created by this new platform. (Apollo) is cross-platform, runs on Mac, Windows and Linux and ultimately on non-PCs, and they only have to create the app once and it leverages the investments they have already made in HTML, PDF and SWF. It renders all three file formats and they can use all or one of them.

It's also a mobile technology?
Chizen: Eventually it will be a mobile technology. Some of it is the limitations of the devices. We want to take Flash Lite and have the ability to display Apollo or a subset of Apollo on mobile devices. First it will be Mac and Windows and then Linux.

More Newsmakers

[jchandler15]

I agree with them

I agree with Adobe it should have it's future on the web, however it must be ready for it and not release a half assed product
Josh Chandler
http://www.techoriphic.com

[k-sea]

Great more flex yet no talk about coldfusion

Nice Bruce, talk up everything except Coldfusion.

Website's will still need to be website's and not flash/flex Apollo driven entities for the next few years at least.

[Too Old For IT]

Flash not on the image here

Flash not on the image here where I work. Itis considered an utter waste of bandwidth.

[lmasanti]

Quite similar to...

From the descriptions of eBay and Amazon examples of Apollo's
applications it seems to me that they are almost identical to the
iTunes experience.

[Too Old For IT]

Adobe sees future on the Web = DUH!

...

[bdennis410]

Content is Web future-Go Adobe!

Congratulations to Chizen for his continuing attemtps to visualize a web future based on user control of content. As I have referred to in the past when commenting, I again urge readers (and Chizen) to read "Rainbow's End" by Vernor Vinge.
Vinge envisions a society based on "wearing" wherein your clothing, and a variety of innocuous attachments, are all part of the "connected" experience, including user "on the fly" content creation, WebCam live always connected, and more.
"Second Life" is also on the way to a magical future. Your web Avatar alter ego may actually lead the life you want to live...or not. It may depend on your "skill set" in developing and managing your Avatar's success.
Entrepreneurs take heed!
To the extent Chizen can see a future for Adobe and partners on which the focus is facilitating content creation and management, I agree that is the way to go. The technical impediments he sees in broadband speed limitations will be solved, sooner rather than much later. Demand will manifest the very moment capability is achieved.
The depth of future demand for web-delivered services, content, information and entertainment is at it's earliest stages; achieving Vinge's vision will require much in technological advances, but my own view is that it is doable. Whether it is necessary, even desireable, remains to be seen.
Mediaman
(Barry Dennis)

[oligofree]

Think out of the box :)))

What can I say? That's more than enough http://www.whatisinthebox.co.uk/