Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Apple puts users on a need-to-have basis
"I haven't been brainwashed by Apple when I say I want systems -- clients and servers alike -- that come out of the box ready to run. I want a short list of system-managed features I can turn on and off and the freedom to reach beyond that without getting my hand slapped by the platform."
Monday, April 18, 2005
Macrodobe Photoflash MXCS
Whenever any big event in Retail happens, people look at this as a survival answer to the Wal-mart question. For software, the question involves Microsoft. Symantec and Veritas, Oracle and PeopleSoft are two similarly big moves in software consolidation recently, both directly citing increased competition from Microsoft as a major motivator for their mergers. Though Microsoft does not yet compete with Adobe or Macromedia on graphics, they are touting a new graphics engine in the upcoming “Longhorn” release which is the new MS OS, indicating that the fabric of graphics treatment on PC’s soon will be changing. Macromedia as been good at staying current with Microsoft. Adobe hasn’t. [More on this angle involving Apple is below]Web Standards. I have a feeling that Adobe knows it has a lousy approach to the web. It has wonderful margins and consistently makes cash, but their failed attempts at winning web developers has been an ongoing problem. Put simply, Macromedia gets the web. Adobe doesn’t. Macromedia still has a giant mountain to climb. Its corporate competitors are Sun, IBM, and Microsoft. Macromedia’s approach to getting behind the firewall is also the most unique. Their model makes use of a bottom-up phenomenon where users demand Macromedia and Adobe products on their desktops because they come in so handy when they use the Internet. The same cannot be said of Sun and IBM, where the top-down model of speaking to CIO’s and CTO’s is their primary target when it comes to selling their products and services.
Print. Adobe dominates. Macromedia was starting to make headway. The two together will be unstoppable. Adobe’s CEO is quoted as having said (I’m paraphrasing here): “Other than Microsoft, we have no competition.” That’s a direct hit to Quark xPress, which is a popular layout program for print. If it wasn’t dead before, it will be now. I don’t even think Microsoft sees any value in them. Quark is officially dead.
The Apple and Microsoft Question. I haven’t seen a lot of buzz noting Apple’s role in this. So we might have an angle here. Both Adobe and Macromedia are heavily supportive of Mac Users. If the merger goes well, then Apple users will have a stronger ally. What’s ironic is that Microsoft actually owns about $1B worth of Apple’s stock as a result of a bail-out program Jobs and Gates negotiated in 1998. Microsoft has been committed to providing Office for the Mac ever since. It looks unlikely, but a true competitor to Microsoft’s Office product could conceivably come from this Adobe-Macromedia entity. Maybe. If it does, it will most certainly involve Open Office, which is a Sun-sponsored open-source software initiative designed to do exactly that. It remains to be seen if Microsoft wields that much influence over Apple. Furthermore, Apple, now high on their forays into iLife and creative software development of their own, make a compelling case for why it may be Herculean (however laudable) task to achieve.
From my perspective, I think the most exciting aspect of this merger is seeing two companies invigorate the software world. Adobe has been struggling for meaning since the advent of the web. Both Adobe’s PDF and Macromedia’s Flash plug-ins are among the most popular on the Internet. Lets they go the way of Real Player (whose use is in constant decline) the merged entity will have to find a way to make flash the de facto standard for graphics presentation and rich internet applications on the web. To do that they are competing against consumers who see plug-ins as being somewhat intrusive. They are also competing against developers who may come to see standards-based approaches as more viable in everyday web development.
Adobe sees Macromedia as a company that has created demand and educated their customers so successfully in the past. Adobe was able to take advantage of the personal computer boom of the 90’s. Macromedia was successfully able to take advantage of the internet boom in the 00’s. Moreover, Macromedia has managed to be expert at technology prognostication; they find the right technologies at the right time and price to bring to consumers and developers. Acquisitions of Flash, ColdFusion, Breeze, RoboHelp and RoboDemo and further development of them into more user-friendly, developer-friendly, and enterprise-attractive entities is impressive. Macromedia has also remained profitable in spite of a staggering pace of acquisition in the past 5 years. Adobe on the other hand, has been milking the Photoshop-Illustrator cash cow for too long and is showing signs of struggling to compete. None of their new products (Adobe Atmosphere, GoLive, AfterEffects) has made much of an impression outside of very small developer circles. What’s more is that Apple has been encroaching on their territory by buying Macromedia’s Video Editing software and turning it into iMovie. They’ve also developed their own Motion Graphics software to compete with AfterEffects. Adobe was wise to buy Macromedia at this stage. They’d be wiser if they let Macromedia run the show from here on out.
TAG: macromedia
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
dog whistle politics
dog whistle politics n. a concealed, coded, or unstated idea, usually divisive or politically dangerous, nevertheless understood by the intended voters. Also dog whistle issue.Hotspot Bloom: The wearable wi-fi detector
Hotspot Bloom: The wearable wi-fi detector: "Hotspot Bloom is a wearable flower that glows and changes color to indicate the signal strength of a nearby wireless network (802.11b/g). With its mobile interface, Hotspot Bloom allows people to immediately identify hotspots and become vehicles of information by simply walking through a public space."Donate to the Power of Love Foundation
Friday, April 08, 2005
From the Labs: ETech 2005
The Tom DeLay Scandals - A score card.
Yahoo! Research Labs
Flash: View Source
Thursday, April 07, 2005
NPR : The Next Pope
Race, politics, religion. The next Pope has a lot of baggage. NPR, along with every other major news outlet, has created a watchlist of potential successors in Ultimate Piety. For myself -- neither a Catholic, Christian or Religious-with-a-capital-R -- the watch-list is no more than a horserace (though I suspect this is true of Christians as well). What makes it all the more newsworthy is that there is a darkhorse. Pardon the pun.Francis Arinze is a Nigerian-born Cardinal and potential successor. Many people believe that he is the Great Black Hope. That is -- in order for the Church to be seen as more dominant force in global economics and policy -- it needs to have a figurehead with the face of the majority of victims of globalization. True enough. And a laudable thought for any of the other Cardinals whose job it is to elect Arinze.
While that decision may well have good intentions, I'm really not sure that it's a wise idea. Here's why:
AIDS is ravaging Sub-saharan Africa. You simply cannot name a country south of the desert that does not have double-digit growth rates in death and infection from HIV/AIDS. With a conservative (and, yes, he is conservative) African Pope, what vital message will be sent to the swiftly dying populations of Africa, India and South America?
"Don't have sex."
Nothing could be more dangerous to a population already confused and ignorant of the facts surrounding the epidemic. They already have poverty, hunger and ignorance without the church's encouragement.
Nevertheless, I'm still split on the issue. An African Pope could be the beginning of necessary and fundamental policy shift from the first world. An African Pope *could* help eliminate egregious debts. An African Pope *could* help Africans unite against dictatorships. An African Pope *could* help ease tensions between the two Christian paths, Islam and Judaism.
The real question is, are all of these issues, including AIDS, ones a Black, Conservative Catholic could help or harm? Is the Church the best medium for the message?
