Adobe vs Apple; Apple vs Adobe
Since the release of the iPad, apple has been raking in the profits by selling more than 1 million units after just one month in the market. (businessinsider.com) However, whilst the iPad has created a new market for slate computers, it also sparked a war between Apple and Adobe. This is very ironic for both companies, considering their beginnings.
“Triumph of the Nerds” is a documentary about the creation of the computer industry. If you watch it, you can better understand the roots of Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and all those cool tech companies. Apple was the innovator it has always been ever since the beginning and captured a good piece of the market. However, versus Microsoft’s graphic user interface, Windows, and its killer-app Lotus 1-2-3, Apple was losing market share to Microsoft. Ironically, it was with the help of Adobe Systems that Apple was able to survive. Adobe developed PostScript, which made possible exact printing of an image on a computer screen onto paper and Apple got the exclusive rights to it. This opened the doors for the artists to get computers, and it is partially why today we associate Apple as a computer for designers.
What is happening now? Why do I say the war is ironic? Because Apple is now attacking Adobe for one of its programs, Flash, saying that the content produced is proprietary of Adobe and it is not open sourced. Steve Jobs says that to develop Flash content all the tools you need are only provided by Adobe, making it a closed system. Adobe says Flash is open. I’m not sure how Apple sees it will benefit from this conflict. It is attacking one of its main allies and one of the software why people buy his computers.
In the end, I think Apple is only hurting itself by continuing this argument.
Here is the complete article about it.
about 1 year ago
I think your analysis is correct on this matter. It seems to me like Steve Jobs is attempting to force the market to choose a different technology, HTML5 which is being developed jointly by Google and Apple. The keyword here is “being developed” this technology is not even out yet and there is no clear set date for when it will be out. Consequently, Apple is gone a long way sense its 80′s campaign of being David against the giant monopolies hogging the market ie Microsoft. Yet it seems today they are becoming what they very much set out to counter.