Microsoft and Adobe Executives Meet to Discuss Apple, Possible Merger

By +Frank B.
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Grand Master

MS Bob 11

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I am laughing away this idea presently but Microsoft can do the unexpected sometimes. Ridiculous rumor, whoever journo started this should be roughed up for scaring people. :laugh:

Rising Star

Bengal34

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http://www.microsoft.com/expression/

Microsoft makes a suite of products very similar to Adobe's. There's a program for web design, silverlight, graphics, etc

EDIT:// It's no photoshop but the suite definately is a compelling alternative to Adobe's other programs. It's personal taste but I prefer the UI in microsoft's programs and I think they're more powerful. I may be a fan of Microsoft's products but I've been using (and buying) the suite since it was Macromedia.

Grand Master

George P Global Moderator

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  • Global Moderator
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http://www.microsoft.com/expression/

Microsoft makes a suite of products very similar to Adobe's. There's a program for web design, silverlight, graphics, etc

EDIT:// It's no photoshop but the suite definately is a compelling alternative to Adobe's other programs. It's personal taste but I prefer the UI in microsoft's programs and I think they're more powerful. I may be a fan of Microsoft's products but I've been using (and buying) the suite since it was Macromedia.

It's even more so with express blend 4 SP1 which adds the ability to import flash UI elements so you can port flash to silverlight even more easier now. People who have used that app tend to love it. Anyways, maybe a merger is going to far for whatever reasons some of you think, but a cross-licensing IP deal is a sure thing to do if that's what they want to go for.

Mentor

rawr_boy81

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Well, it isn't as though Adobe products can get any worse than they are today. To be honest Expression Studio is a great piece of software it is too bad that Microsoft doesn't put as much effort into pushing it as they do with Microsoft Office.

As for Adobe and Apple - lets remember who is the one making the crappy implementation of Flash. Apple isn't the one doing it, it is Adobe and Adobe have known for years about the massive gap between the Windows experience and the Mac OS X experience when it comes to Flash reliability, speed, security and so on. Before people jump on the Apple bashing bandwagon, lets remember who is the one who makes crap software that runs on Mac OS X (if you talk about iTunes on Windows - you've instantly lost the debate so shut up).

Grand Master

Subject Delta

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If Microsoft acquired Adobe then my gut feeling is they would cease internal development of most of their own things like Expression Web, and through money behind the creative suite. The creative suite is a huge cash cow and Microsoft wouldn't abandon it. Although i'd rather like to see them unify Flash and Silverlight.

Mentor

rawr_boy81

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If Microsoft acquired Adobe then my gut feeling is they would cease internal development of most of their own things like Expression Web, and through money behind the creative suite. The creative suite is a huge cash cow and Microsoft wouldn't abandon it. Although i'd rather like to see them unify Flash and Silverlight.

Imagine Silverlight with ActiveScript as being a language on .NET - that would be friggin awesome. I hope Microsoft does purchase Adobe since they have the cash and it would actually be a cash generating unit rather than a loss maker like their experimental departments lol

Grand Master

M_Lyons10

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I'm all for this. I dislike Adobe a great deal. Perhaps under Microsoft's guidance they would release better products and more innovative products. Simply following standard design paradigms would be a huge boon for their software...

Grand Master

M_Lyons10

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If Microsoft acquired Adobe then my gut feeling is they would cease internal development of most of their own things like Expression Web, and through money behind the creative suite. The creative suite is a huge cash cow and Microsoft wouldn't abandon it. Although i'd rather like to see them unify Flash and Silverlight.

I think that they would unify the product lines... But I don't think they would just cease development of the Expression line. It does things that the Adobe Suite does not (And to be quite honest, there are a good deal of products in the Adobe suite that duplicate functionality unnecessarily). I think that they would likely combine products where it made sense, but that wouldn't be the case for the entire Expression line really...

well this could be the end of the great photoshop....

picture Ribbon interface. LOL noooooooo.... :wacko:

I see no reason the ribbon would be worked into the Creative Suite. The ribbon isn't in the Expression suite, or Visual Studio, etc... Microsoft realizes that the ribbon doesn't make sense for everything.

Mentor

rawr_boy81

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I think that they would unify the product lines... But I don't think they would just cease development of the Expression line. It does things that the Adobe Suite does not (And to be quite honest, there are a good deal of products in the Adobe suite that duplicate functionality unnecessarily). I think that they would likely combine products where it made sense, but that wouldn't be the case for the entire Expression line really...

It all comes back to the code base of Adobe and how easy it is to extend it into the areas where Microsoft is interested in - can they easily transform Flash CS5 into something that does Flash and Silverlight? should the two co-exist or should it be replaced with a single hybrid of the two? its all speculation for now until it actually does go through and what Microsoft actually inherits.

Personally I want to see it happen and Microsoft go back to the meat and potatoes of the company; making great a great operating system with top notch middleware. Make the middleware as broad as possible, push the Windows upgrade cycle out to four years and focus on getting the middleware taking advantage of those Windows features rather than having this massive lag between features and software utilising them.

I see no reason the ribbon would be worked into the Creative Suite. The ribbon isn't in the Expression suite, or Visual Studio, etc... Microsoft realizes that the ribbon doesn't make sense for everything.

But that could be due to a number of factors beyond not 'choosing' ribbon; it could be because in the case of Visual Studio that their first was getting it over to WPF and maybe in the future, once they get that sorted out they're going to find a way of tackling the Visual Studio Interface. The transition to Ribbon with Office didn't happen over night, it wasn't until 2010 when it was extended to all products - its going to be a gradual transition and it will take longer for more complex software.

Grand Master

M_Lyons10

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It all comes back to the code base of Adobe and how easy it is to extend it into the areas where Microsoft is interested in - can they easily transform Flash CS5 into something that does Flash and Silverlight? should the two co-exist or should it be replaced with a single hybrid of the two? its all speculation for now until it actually does go through and what Microsoft actually inherits.

Personally I want to see it happen and Microsoft go back to the meat and potatoes of the company; making great a great operating system with top notch middleware. Make the middleware as broad as possible, push the Windows upgrade cycle out to four years and focus on getting the middleware taking advantage of those Windows features rather than having this massive lag between features and software utilising them.

I agree, I would love for Microsoft to purchase Adobe. I have absolutely no idea how easy it is to extend Adobe's products, but my expectation is not very... Adobe seems to be a rather lumbering company overall, and if it's not a technical limitation, then I'm not sure what else it would be (corporate arrogance?). I think that what would end up happening in the end would be new products written from the ground up that borrowed functionality from the Creative Suite and Expression lines... I would really be shocked if Microsoft continued working on Adobe's codebase as it is outdated and I imagine a mess to dig through. I of course don't know that, but having watched Adobe struggle to update their products over the last few revisions, I don't know what else it would be...

But that could be due to a number of factors beyond not 'choosing' ribbon; it could be because in the case of Visual Studio that their first was getting it over to WPF and maybe in the future, once they get that sorted out they're going to find a way of tackling the Visual Studio Interface. The transition to Ribbon with Office didn't happen over night, it wasn't until 2010 when it was extended to all products - its going to be a gradual transition and it will take longer for more complex software.

True, and who really knows. All I can say is that Microsoft has stated on several occasions that the ribbon does not work in every situation, and the Visual Studio team actually made a point of mentioning this when they began discussing 2010. So I really don't think they have any plans of putting the ribbon in Visual Studio, and I think they feel it doesn't really work for that product. Same with the Expression tools.

Grand Master

George P Global Moderator

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  • Global Moderator
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Actually this would be quite cool. I am sure if ms bought them, adobe would still have the final say on their product line for now.

Probably have the adobe teams just keep working as normal under whatever MS devision does Expression Studio and VS. Just one more group along with all the rest at MS.

Veteran

lalalawawawa

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Probably have the adobe teams just keep working as normal under whatever MS devision does Expression Studio and VS. Just one more group along with all the rest at MS.

+1 for this. Get the best of Expression Studio and Adobe's products and merge the stuff... Best of both worlds. :wub:

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