Newsmaker: Adobe versus the world

(continued from previous page)

transformation we had to go through when we went from being a PostScript company to being a shrink-wrapped applications software company.

Sticking with the analogy, what do you see as your Honda-like core competency?
It's software that helps people and organizations communicate better, and when I say better, it's where the information needs to be more impactful, more reliable, more secure. It's where the presentation of the information is important.

There was a lot made of Microsoft's decision to get into the electronic-forms market and the potential for head-to-head competition with Adobe. Have you seen any increased competition with Microsoft as a result of products like InfoPath?
I don't think so. At least, we don't hear much about their current offering. I don't hear much about (Microsoft's) success with products like InfoPath, and I don't think it really met the target...I do believe that as they make progress, or try to make progress with the long-haul components, that they will look to do more things similar to what we do today with PDF.

We have been at this now for about 10 years and PDF has become such a standard around the world that it is going to be really hard for many organizations to change their mission-critical workflows. If you just look at the number of government agencies around the world that already encourage the use of PDF and accept it as a de facto standard, it's pretty hard for me to see how Microsoft's going to come in and just unseat all those workflows. But they are Microsoft and they do have $40 billion in revenue and...

They do have a platform advantage, right?
They do have a platform advantage. They do have a monopoly; that's what the Justice Department said. But, you know, I think we're in pretty good shape.

While we are on the subject of competitors, what about Apple? Do you see Apple as a competitor? Partner? Both?
They are clearly both a partner and in some cases a competitor. They're an important partner in that about 25 percent of our business comes from people who own Macs. That's a very loyal customer to Adobe and a very important customer as well. That's also a very important customer obviously to Apple. So it's in both of our best interests to partner, and I think we do a pretty good job of it. If you look at which software company had more OS X applications available before anybody else, it was Adobe. If you look at how we optimized for that platform, it's probably more so with Adobe than anybody else; we're probably the largest ISV (independent software vendor) for the Mac. There are some places where we do compete...in particular in video, and we have agreed to compete. And we compete ferociously.

It's pretty hard for me to see how Microsoft's going to come in and just unseat all those workflows.

Has that percentage of your business from Mac users been pretty much holding steady?
For Adobe holistically, it's decreased. A big reason for that is the success that we've had with Acrobat and the enterprise business because that is predominantly a Windows business.

What about Adobe's plans on Linux? We reported last fall that Adobe was recruiting a head of Linux market development, and I know that you announced a Linux version of Acrobat Reader recently. Is that just a toe in the Linux water at this point? Or is there enough demand for Linux versions of your other products?
Yes, so first of all most of our servers (software products) that we make available at the enterprise level will work on top of Linux. In terms of (the) Linux desktop, that is one where I think you characterized it correctly. We're dipping our toes in the water, we're listening to our customers and we're watching and we are trying to learn. We are looking at what other applications might make sense.

The reality is, today, other than some vertical markets and some emerging markets, there aren't a lot of corporations that have moved to a Linux desktop. So we're listening to our customers, we're trying to understand if they're going to move and when. We see a lot of people who were traditionally on Unix workstations doing video type of work, moving to Linux. We see a lot of people who have vertical applications, manufacturing, customer service, move, and then we're seeing some government agencies around the world move, but we?re not seeing a lot of our traditional customers moving.

So, what products that might make sense there? Would that be things like Photoshop or...?
What we're trying to do is look at who is moving to a Linux workflow and then say, "OK, what applications will they require?" If you're a government agency, a bank or insurance company or any other large enterprise and your citizens or your customers or potential customers for whatever reason have a Linux desktop, you want to make sure that the document that they're trying to interact with works well. You want to make sure that you support the ability to save the information so all of the rich capability we have in the current Adobe Reader for Windows and Mac, you will see on Linux, and that will interface with our server products--so that's absolutely something we will do and are in the process of doing.

That's a definite plan on that?
That's a definite plan. It looks like adoption of Linux seems to be happening more with the business community than the creative professional. There's still a lot of Macintosh users there...people who are very comfortable with their operating systems. So there's not a compelling reason to switch. I think the one place where we're seeing switching going on a little bit is in some of the emerging markets like India and China. But quite frankly, for us, those are relatively small markets because of some of the piracy issues.  

More Newsmakers

[PolarUpgrade]

Too much of a money focus could make Adobe vullnerable....

It is good for Adobe that Adobe is a big money-maker. But as an Acrobat user, I wonder if Adobe isn't making a classic mistake that many magazine publishers made in thelate eighties as expanding media alternatives began cutting ad revenue--the source of magazine profits.

A lot of Canadian magazines decided they were going to go "upmarket" and sell where the money was. Many failed in the process, not realizing that while the up market has deep pockets, that same market is much more discerning and careful with its money. It is more deep-pocketed but also much smaller in practice in terms of total sales.

What hints at this for Adobe is the inexplicable dropping of older Windows version support from Adobe Reader 7 as well as the shrinking number of platforms that Reader is available for. You don't grow the use of an expensive proprietary format by limiting its use to essentially what the boys in Redmond want your software to run on.

In this respect Adobe's supposedly opposed-to-MS document stance seems more a chimera than fact. One senses this is a case of Adobe getting its sandbox to play in. It seems to me more of an Adobe-MS symbiotic relationship. Adobe and MS are enjoying good profits.

Also, Acrobat Reader has a serious deficiency in that Boolean searches with comiled Acrobat-generated indexes seem to return meaningful results only across documents and not withinn a single document. This makes using Adobe's Reader Advanced search feature (the Indexed search) a weak tool for book indexing/searching--hardly a good thing when you want to grow the use of the format in a serious way.

Profit is great, but we also still need wide compatibility across all older Windows, and meaningful Search functionality. These areas of deficiency, and Adobe's focus on the "enterprise" are what make Adobe a potential sitting duck.

[lsc]

Adobe will survive

Going where the money is? Have you noticed that the vast majority of Acrobat users only use the free Reader? Not much money in that. Everyone else can (a) use a Mac OSX, or (b) use OpenOffice, or (c) find another way to make PDFs. Companies can generally afford the actual Adobe package. I think Adobe's aim is pretty good. (I can't speak for their other products as I don't use them.)


Windows and Mac Requirements...

(2005) Acrobat v7.0: Win 2K,XP or Mac 10.2.8 and up.

(2003) Acrobat v6.01: Win 98,Me,NT,2K,XP or MacOS 10.2.2 and up.

(2001) Acrobat v5.1: Win 98,Me,NT,2K,XP or Mac 9.1 and up.

(1999) Acrobat v4.05: Win 95,98,NT (Not sure about Mac)


In other words, Adobe has consistently kept their software compliant with five year old Windows, although Macs tended to get phased out faster (OSX 10.0 came out in 2000, I think.)

Also, it should be mentioned that Acrobat (paid-for full version, not the free Reader) has usually been set to build PDF's compatible with the PREVIOUS version by default. If your version wasn't set that way, it could be arranged in 3 clicks or less.

I own an iMac that I bought in 1999. I upgraded it to OS 10.2.8 (as far as it will go) and plan to keep using it for a couple more years. My complaint with Adobe is not that they are dropping 5 and 7 year old operating systems. (I did that with my own computer.) I think they hang on to older OS's better than many other vendors.

My problem with Adobe is that the last decent version of Acrobat and Reader for Windows was version 5. V6 (patched and unpatched) simply cannot open some v3 and v4 PDF's correctly, and editing in Acrobat v6 is awkward at best, and impossible at worst. I often move to a PC with v5 installed to make changes. (I've heard that v6 crashes on some people, but I've never had that problem myself.)

I suspect they'll fix the usability problems in v7 or v8, and will keep Reader free. And since they are fairly cross-platform, there's no worry about that problem.

Adobe will be around for quite awhile.

a linux port would be wise...

simply because small design shops and non-design centric businesses can cut info tech overhead dramatically switching to linux.

a shop with 10 designers and no budget could easily build pc workstations and servers for far less than a stock/shelf system (dell, ibm, etc). cut the cost of windows from the equation and you just saved a lot of cash that can be spent on better things.

if adobe ports their flagship software, these small design shops could buy linux versions and not only benefit from stability, but still save money.

[Dachi]

money saved

You don't really save that much money by building instead of buying, and most companies have 0 desire to build all their computers and mess with RMA's etc. Mostly ALL of them buy something that "just works". And in the case of say, Dell, it probably only costs Dell ~$35 per PC for a copy of Wndows. Even 2 hours of lost productivity using Linux would offset the cost saved on Windows. Also most companies don't download and install free Linux ISO's, they buy supported Linux workstation products from companies like Red Hat for ~$60 a pop.

The bottom line is that the cost of hardware is nill compared to the cost of staffing employees. The cheapest product will be the one people can get work done faster on.

[Below Meigh]

Bigger they are...

Adobe is getting too big for its britches (cliche?).

Rather the user (ie. Graphics designer or publisher) dictating what software tools are needed, Adobe has been dictating what and how one should do their workflow. At the expense of costly (and frequently buggy) software updates.

Will users comply when Adobe mandates that "all" its applications must connect to Adobe-online to run? We see this with licensing, but when all users of Adobe applications are on high-speed lines, they will use the old convention of Terminal-Mainframe to run applications. You'll have a shell, but the main app will be running at Adobe.

You don't own the software, you lease it. Updates are free (repairs) and upgrades cost you (things we left out but you'll pay to have).

But as folks liken to freeware (opensource), its a matter of time before someone knocks them off their high horse (gotta love cliches).

[raitchison]

PDF won't be the key as long as Acrobat sucks

Already I avoid PDF documents whenever possible because I know that if I click on even a 20k one page PDF document in a web page my browser will be COMPLETELY unusable for at least 30 seconds (frequently longer)

Over the years Acrobat has gone from a small, efficient reader application to this massive bloated pig and a bigger hit to productivity than espn.com. It's this that will drive people to alternatives, ANY alternatives.

[Dachi]

I agree, PDF reader is a pig

There are readers for Linux like Ghostview that will whip up PDF files in a fraction of the time as PDF reader. If another decent company made a light PDF reader for Windows it would probably be popular. It would be a fast way to put a small programming company on the map.

Preview BABY!!

For OS X, Preview rocks the house - screams through PDF's...

Try 7.0...

Acrobat 7.0 is much faster at coming up. On my machine it is seconds plus the time to download the PDF with DSL it has been a big improvement. 6.0 was slow and a total dog. The down side to 7.0 is that to do this they keep more in memory which depending on you and your computer can be an ok thing or a bad thing.

For creating basic PDF files I like Macromedia FlashPaper 2. It is very quick and works quite well for that.

Robert

[System Tyrant]

Live in the title industry.

You think PDF or Acrobat Reader sucks. I can tell you that the 20+ companies putting out "alternitives" suck 100 times as bad. They never work right, they won't print on anything other than HP printers, you have to update them every time you get edocs, you have no control over the print job, some of them won't let you view before printing, your lucky if they don't bring down a computer system or cause printer problems for the rest of them, they have no support (well if you don't count the support techs telling you that it's your computer and printers), and the only other option you have for recieving the docs is by overnight mail at our expense.

I will take PDF any day. I user version 7 and frankly I don't have any problems with it.

[FocusedWolf]

I AGREE! Acrobat is completely trash due to its startup delay!

Its absoluetly crazy how long it takes for that adobe reader to load!! I got an even longer wait then it and its complete bs. When i'm in linux i can read pdf files as fast as a textfile...we are actually waiting for the useless features of acrobat to initialize!! I gotta go do some searching...theirs gotta be a pdf reader out there not made by adobe that works within firefox.

[iqula]

Adobe complements OS so it's a win win

Adobe has always been a very forward minded company, one might have said a bit ahead of their time. They really came to be when the internet got up to full steam and their product suited it perfectly.

OS does not need to replace products of the like that Adobe offers and the OS uptakers will want to use the well polished Adobe suite for their own pleasure.

I feel OS is not here to take over proprietary software and turn a billion dollar industry into a million one but create entirly new markets like the Free Virtual Personal Online Desktop <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cosmopod.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.cosmopod.com</a> is providing.

I agree but...

I agree with your comment that even smaller shops prefer to just have something that completely works out of the box. However, if you've been following Linux distributions for a few years, you'll see that Linux and the software for Linux is quickly evolving on the desktop side and is currently near the ease-of-use of Windows PCs. I think what Adobe is doing is they are looking ahead and seeing the value of desktop Linux passing that of Windows within the next three or four years, and developing their strategy. A Linux port of Photoshop would be a good long-term strategy for Adobe. I think they've been very wise to distance themselves from partnerships with commercial desktop vendors.

[Pariah S. Burke]

Not distance, but not get exclusive either

Adobe hasn't really distanced itself from OS publishers--it still has very deep and quite strong relations with both Apple and Microsoft. What Adobe has done well, however, is to keep itself pointed down the middle of the road, without creating a preferential shift of its brand or products toward one OS or the other.

Granted, sensationalized stories come up now and then that Adobe has "abandoned Mac users" or that Adobe "hates Windows." As any intelligent person knows, this is all rubbish and melodrama over Adobe's necessary marketing and development responses to necessary marketing or development changes at another company (like Apple or Microsoft).

These occassional histrionics aside, Adobe has done a masterful job of navigating away from a platform dependence or even implied preference. That strategy will serve Adobe Systems, Inc. well in the long run because it means Adobe and its products will thrive regardless of whether Mac suddenly shifts into the dominant platform in the market and whether Windows beats OS X to a 128-bit OS. Most relevant to this thread is the fact that Adobe's strategy also gives the San Jose company the flexibility and freedom to embrace Linux if and when that time comes.

Like its flagship product namesake, Adobe is an acrobat, able to twist and turn with the greatest of ease in response to changes in the precariously strung high-wire world of operating systems.

Adobe's applications and technologies run on someone else's operating system, but Adobe's future does not depend on anyone's operating system.

Why Adobe does not do well with the Macintosh community...

Well speaking for the systems that I administrate and the
systems that I consult we have found and been looking for
alternatives for Adobe products. Yes that is right. Why because
Adobe continues to shun the Mac community by not having a
server products for Mac OS. Yes one of the better server setups
out there today is an Apple Xserve running Mac OS X Server. Yet
Adobe does not have a product that runs in that environment.
They would much rather produce a server product for Microsoft
Windows XP client than a server product for Mac OS X Server.
Don't be fooled by the lack of a Server product Adobe
themselves will not produce a server product not because they
can not but they will not. I have contacted them time and time
again about this and everytime they are not concerned about
prodcuing anything for the Mac.

Secondly, most of the Mac applications are lesser products with
lesser features and yet Adobe expects me to pay for the
developement of Windows only products and features. No that
isn't happening and no I will not pay. And that is all I have to say
about that.

Alternative products that run on Mac OS X.

Our company makes an alternative software product for Mac OS
X, where Adobe's product is not compatible. The Adobe product
in question is Adobe Graphics Server. For some reason they
haven't made it for Mac OS X - only Windows and Solaris.

It's digital asset management software called Image Portal X.
It utilizes a QuickTime image processing engine instead of AGS,
which does about 90% of what AGS can do. When Core Imaging
comes available with Apple's release of Tiger we'll incorporate
that for this product.

We're featuring it on our homepage right now...
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.netx.net/" target="_newWindow">http://www.netx.net/</a>

... and beyond!

Adobe's attitude toward Apple is more fool-hearty than you
think. With Tiger, OS X along with Core Image/Video will
introduce programmers to pre-built "Image Units" that will make
the creation of graphics manipulation apps soooo much easier.

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/coreimage.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/coreimage.html</a>

Adobe's short-lived "PC Preferred" campaign was a slap in the
face to Apple. Since then, we've seen numerous updates to Final
Cut, Apples category killer Non Linear Video Editor, and Motion
- which will soon to do After Effects what Final Cut did to
Premiere. Adobe has yet to leverage Cocoa, and it's really
beginning to show - their apps lack the polish of a true OS X
experience. Frustrated with Acrobat Reader? Ditch it! Preview
is sooooooo much faster - no longer do I dread getting a PDF.

[System Tyrant]

Adobe on Apple

I'm not going to pretend to know the whole history of Apple and Adobe, but from what I have seen lately Apple has been slapping a lot of the companies that produce software for the Apple OS. I don't think Apple is pulling a Microsoft in regards to competition, but as I recall Adobe didn't pull support for the Mac with Premiere until Apple came out with Final Cut (and from what I've heard it is a good program).

I'm not trying to knock Apples goal to give consumers good software for a good price, but business is politics and you can't just kick the people you rely on and expect them to take it. Look as what sun has done. They get a partner then publicly embaris them and then loose them.

Hey, I still like Apple and Adobe.

Boo Hoo

&gt; Adobe continues to shun the Mac community by
&gt; not having a server products for Mac OS.

Well "boo hoo". The server products are aimed at the Enterprise market. How many Fortune 1000 companies run there corporate ERP systems on Macs? Answer: 1 - Apple. :) When Macs start making inroads on Wall Street, then Adobe will invest in them.

&gt; They would much rather produce a server
&gt; product for Microsoft Windows XP client than a
&gt; server product for Mac OS X Server.

If that's a surpise to you then so will this be: Adobe would much rather make money than lose money. Just as the article says, Adobe is following the money, that's all. Adobe loves Macs, but they only have 10% of the market. It costs the same to develop software for the Mac as it does for Windows. If you have a to invest money in something would you invest in somthing with a 10% return or a 90% return?

There are a few niche markets where Mac have enough marketshare to warrant the investment (Creative Professional market is one of them), but Financial, Manufacturing and Insurance markets just aren't saturated with enough Macs to make it worthwhile.

&gt; I have contacted them time and time again
&gt; about this and everytime they are not
&gt; concerned about prodcuing anything for the Mac.

Again, "boo hoo". You're in a niche market. That has advantages and disadvantages. Deal with it.

&gt; Secondly, most of the Mac applications are
&gt; lesser products with lesser features and yet
&gt; Adobe expects me to pay for the developement
&gt; of Windows only products and features.

Lesser returns = lesser investment = lesser features. It's a vicious cycle, but that's business. Like the article said, Adobe is following the money.

Microsoft will--someday--get it right.???????????

What????? Since WHEN has this been a foregone conclusion???

To whit...

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://news.com.com/Hotmail+outage+peeves+some+e-" target="_newWindow">http://news.com.com/Hotmail+outage+peeves+some+e-</a>
mail+users/2100-1038_3-5587906.html?
part=rss&#38;tag=5587315&#38;subj=news

Right now:

Linux is not all that cheaper to deploy than MacOS-X. It is an excellent OS, but it needs less clunky OS interfaces. On the desktop, it wont fly because 100 bucks or so is nothing compared to how much a good designer costs (which is why Macs still reign in mission critical applications in the entertainment industry such as publishing, audio, and video, with the notable exception of 3D design).

On the server end, that is a different story. Linux and Mac-OSX server are different beasts, but each has its own good points. If MacOS-X Server ever jumps from its very reasonable price, I expect Linux will shortly eat its lunch in the media server market for creative organizations.

[Pariah S. Burke]

Ho Hum.

Nothing about this interview was news, and the reporter didn't follow up on any openings Chizen offered. What ever happened to concepts like the hard question?

There's even more response to this story and its reader comments on the Design Weblog.

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://design.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000703033069/" target="_newWindow">http://design.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000703033069/</a>

FrameMaker for Mac OS X

Mr. Chizen seems to talk in riddles: For the last 15 years, my
company, InfoPage, Japan, which is 99% Mac, 99% FrameMaker,
has been very loyal to Adobe. Weve bought and regularly
upgraded English and Japanese versions of Adobe FrameMaker,
Adobe PageMaker, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe
Acrobat, Adobe PostScript products, Adobe Type 1 Roman fonts,
Adobe Japanese fonts (plus: Adobe ATM Deluxe, Adobe PageMill,
Adobe SiteMill, Adobe Streamline, Adobe Dimensions, Adobe
ScreenReady, and Adobe SuperPaint).

And how does Mr. Chizen reward us for our loyalty? He kills off
our most important application - Mac FrameMaker! (Adobe
continues to make it for Windows and Solaris.) And what does he
suggest we do? Ditch the Mac and all our Mac software, buy a
bunch of Windows PCs, and pay full price again for Windows
versions of all our other Adobe applications. I guess the phrase
important customer means something else in Adobes
corporate dictionary.

In case youre wondering, FrameMaker is a vertical app for
producing long, technical documents. Its used by
manufacturers around the world, including Microsoft Press.
Adobe use it and are shifting from Mac to Solaris. Apple uses it
and, like the rest of us, is currently running it in the Classic
environment. (The iPod Shuffle user guide was made with
FrameMaker 6.0 running in Classic.)

Currently, there is no alternative on Mac OS X. Our options are:
1) Stay with FrameMaker on Mac OS 9 while other Mac users
enjoy the power and elegance of Mac OS X. 2) Run FrameMaker
in Mac OS Xs Classic environment, which works, but no doubt
Apple will one day end-of-life Classic. 3) Cross-grade to
Windows, the cost of which is prohibitive, not to mention the
security risks, viruses, spyware, and so on.

If you are a Mac FrameMaker user whos affected by Adobes
decision to discontinue Mac FrameMaker, please join almost
3,000 other disenfranchised Adobe customers by signing the
FrameMaker for Mac OS X petition. More at &lt;<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://" target="_newWindow">http://</a>
www.infopage.net/fmforosx/&gt;.

Hypocrisy?

Mr. Chizen writes, "[The Mac-user is] a very loyal customer to Adobe and a very important customer as well. That's also a very important customer obviously to Apple. So it's in both of our best interests to partner, and I think we do a pretty good job of it. This from the head of the company that killed Mac FrameMaker? That will not even talk with the virtually 3000 who have petitioned Adboe to reconsider? (For those who don't know FrameMaker, it's an outstandingly flexible DTP with, so far, the best feature set of any DTP with unique and invaluable long-document (books and multi-volume books) and technical document capabilities). Adobe bought FrameMaker in the 1990's and has reneged on maintaining it, except for a few "sexy" additions, ever since.

When Adobe learns to communicate openly and honestly with all the users of its products, Mr. Chizen might have something to say one is ready to believe.

Michael Meyer

[Earl Benser]

Every product Adobe bought....

... was purchased to eliminate Adobe's competition in the Mac
arena. Adobe bought the product(s), but never acquired the
intelligence to properly sell and maintain the products.
Framemaker is one, PageMaker and SuperPaint are two other
(from Aldus).

Adobe claims that InDesign is the PageMaker repkacement in
OSX is InDesign. Obviously, no one at Adobe has experience in
running both programs. So PageMaker is dead (runs like a sick
dog in Classic, just plain slow in OS 9.1, and I'm looking for a
non-Adobe replacement.

Create from StoneWorks seems to be a real winner to take
PageMaker's place. Preview opens PDF's, and Create and Word
make them, so Acrobat has been trashed. Next, Illustrator needs
to go..The rest of Adobe's stable is not worth considering.

Maybe if you are into supercomplex document production,
Adobe's products have some merit, but my jobs are much less
complex and I don't neeed howitzers to go rabbit hunting.

[Pariah S. Burke]

Earl Benser: Foot in mouth

Earl Benser ranted: "Every product Adobe bought was purchased to eliminate Adobe's competition in the Mac arena. Adobe bought the product(s), but never acquired the intelligence to properly sell and maintain the products. Framemaker is one, PageMaker and SuperPaint are two other (from Aldus)."

You should really check your facts before you try to blast something.

Aldus, the creator of PageMaker, didn't have the "intelligence" to maintain it either. Long before Adobe offered to buy Paul Brainard's Aldus, Brainard and co. realized that PageMaker's codebase was broken and unfixable. Specifically, during the fast and furious software development of the Eighties, Aldus had failed to properly comment its code or even write clean code. PageMaker's code base was a mess from day one, and, by the time Adobe acquired it in 1994, it was all but untouchable.

THAT is why Aldus began building InDesign. Then codenamed K2, InDesign was Aldus's replacement to PageMaker. And K2 was the crown jewel in the acquisition of Aldus.

Just as an FYI, now, 12 years after Aldus began building InDesign, some of the same people who originally developed PageMaker under Paul Brainard continue to work for Adobe on PageMaker.

FrameMaker on the Mac, to answer you and Michael Meyer, ceased development because the number of people purchasing it didn't justify the costs of continued development. Of the alleged 3000 people Meyer claims have petitioned Adobe to upgrade the product, how many actually bought FrameMaker 6? What about 6.5?

At the time Adobe made the announcement that Frame development on the Mac would cease, most Mac Frame users were still using FrameMaker 5 despite the availability of 6 and 6.5 for years.

If you don't buy the upgrades, the company doesn't know you're out there. Moreover, if you don't buy the upgrades, you don't allow the company to make return on its development investment.

You made your bed, now lie in it.

And, as far as SuperPaint, it was a consumer-level product. Adobe unilaterally moved away from consumer products for a long time--on ALL operating systems--to focus on what Adobe does best: Professional grade products.

If you don't want or need Photoshop's professional features, quit whining and go get GIMP.

If you're too frightened to try InDesign, stick with PageMaker in classic.

If FrameMaker on Mac means so much to you, stop ******** and ask Adobe nicely. Keep going with your petition, but keep in mind that Adobe is a company that must see a return on investment to keep a product alive. If you don't let Adobe know you're out there by purchasing the upgrades, Adobe will think you aren't out there.

[Pariah S. Burke]

History of PageMaker and InDesign

For more on the history of PageMaker and InDesign see this site:

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.quarkvsindesign.com/about-war.php" target="_newWindow">http://www.quarkvsindesign.com/about-war.php</a>

[Earl Benser]

Good story line.....

.. but that wasn't the words I got from Adobe support. But hen, not
much of what they have ever said was right.

[Frank_Martin]

breakdown in integrity

The claim that Mac customers are important to Adobe is not
consistent with their actions. Specifically, dropping Framemaker
for Mac has devastated me. This communicates that Mac users
are less important, and makes the claim that they are seem
hollow and patronizing. Tell the truth, don't shine us on!

[skellener]

Adobe is irrelevant

There are tons of great apps out there other than Abobe's
expensive bloatwear. Now that Macromedia will be devoured
(sorta Like Coke devouring Pepsi) I think it is a perfect
opportunity for the smaller developers to step up and show the
world how great apps run!

Instead of Photoshop try Gimp Shop
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://plasticbugs.com/index.php?p=241" target="_newWindow">http://plasticbugs.com/index.php?p=241</a>

Instead on InDesign and Illustrator try Create
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.stone.com/Create/Create.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.stone.com/Create/Create.html</a>

Instead of Streamline try Silhouette
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.silhouetteonline.com" target="_newWindow">http://www.silhouetteonline.com</a>

Then end is near for Adobe. Watch how they suffer through this
merger with layoffs and a shrinking of user base (no they will
not grow the base with Macromedia users). Nothing good ever
comes from these massive mergers. This will be no exception.