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Microsoft vs Adobe?
This is a strange turn of events.
For the last few years it seemed like Adobe was teamed up with Microsoft.
I remember attending NAB one year, when Adobe had only pcs on display
(athough for the group presentations, hidden behind the curtain was a trusty
Mac, running software with the pc interface!) Most people figured Adobe
was being paid well for hiding the Macs, and didn’t think much of it.Adobe’s rancor with Apple accelerated after Apple came out with Fiinal Cut,
the editing software that took customers away from Adobe’s unreliable Premiere.
At one point, at a trade show, I remember being shocked as an Adobe
rep tried to convince me to work on a pc!Is all of this changing?
Microsoft is coming out with METRO. This is touted on the web as a “PDF killer.”
There is a fairly in-depth article on the subject in this month’s Computer Arts
Magazine. Metro has nowhere near the functionality of Acrobat. But then again,
most Acrobat users don’t get particularly deep into the program.It just makes you wonder where Microsoft is coming from these days. I doubt if
they are trying to become the graphics kingpin. But taking something universally
used, and making it proprietary, might be another attempt to curtail the one company
that makes Darth’s knees tremble – Apple. -
6 Replies
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The PDF format is pretty well proprietary as well, even if a few open source creation programs exist. Tried a few of the not-free PDF creation clones – but when Adobe creates a new standard of PDF, then the clones become out of date. Nobody makes a competing reader either AFAIK. And the adobe reader is rapidly becoming ad-ware as well.
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George – I hate hearing that Adobe is charging for Acrobat Reader. If so, that’s a mistake.
What I mainly meant by non proprietary is software available for both pcs and Macs.
Given all of the software that digital artists have to buy as well as update annually, Acrobat is
out of sight for what most people use it for.
Competition will be a good thing if the software isn’t just for one platform . -
Acrobat Reader IS still free. It is the creator that is expensive – CAN$600 The clones are in the $100 range – still a lot to create a file when you compare to the price of QuickTime or Zip. At least if MS creates their own standard for a web document, then like the Windows Media creation programs, it will likely be free. Yes the catch is you need to buy Windows, but 95 percent of the world is already doing that anyway. And I am willing to bet they will provide a free MAC based reader as well. Probably even offer to licence the code to Apple, but it will be Apple that will refuse to do so. A bit like Real Media. Once MS got its act together there is little reason left to create Real Media files. Or even QT files unless you are selling mainly to that slim 5 percent. PPro no longer comes with the Real Media encoder. Next version will likely come out with the Flash video encoder which now offers featurs that neither QT or WM offer.
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[George Socka] “… am willing to bet they will provide a free MAC based reader as well. Probably even offer to licence the code to Apple, but it will be Apple that will refuse to do so”
And we all know what a finely crafted bit of software Windows Media Player for Mac (not MAC) is, so hopes would not be very high for an elegant (or even barely working) MS-provided solution. An unneeded solution for a problem that really does not exist, but for MS’ creating it.
And In the event MS did offer to license, through what conduit to Apple’s front office do you just know “it will be Apple that will refuse to do so?”—
Chuck Reti
Video Editor
Detroit MI -
Any Mac application that prints through the standard printer interface can make a PDF under OS X. There are also a couple of open source solutions, but I don’t have any experience with them.
As for PDF readers, Apple’s preview app is pretty decent. I rarely use Acrobat Reader these days unless I’m filling out an online PDF form.
Metro is based on technology developed by an Asian company called Creature House for their paint and animation software, Expressions and Living Cels. Both of these packages were cross platform at one time. We can only hope that Microsoft continues to develop along those lines.
Having said that, I was very unhappy when Microsoft bought Creature House. Expressions was an interesting vector based paint package (not with out a few issues) and Living Cels looked to be a great looking charactor animation package. Last I checked you could still download Expressions from their website, but Living Cels disappeared.
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Well, Just keep in mind all of the people with Windows PCs that have Quicktime installed for the iTunes Music Store and their iPods. I think that’s proof that not everything Microsoft touches, turns to gold. You don’t hear much about C# or .Net either.
11 years ago, Microsoft bought a competitor to Photoshop from a company called Altamira. That company’s founder was Alvy Ray Smith; one of the cofounders of Pixar and a guy who practically invented computer paint software while working at NYIT in the 1970’s. (Anyone ever heard of the Ampex AVA?)
Microsoft has had all this time to do something wonderful, and all I see are consumer cheesemo Picture-It programs. With that kind of track record in the graphics arena, I’m not too worried about Microsoft.
We should all know by now that Mac OS 10’s graphics system is called Quartz and is based on PDF. Here is your challenge… Find a Mac system running Tiger and install the Developer tools that are on the Mac OS install DVD. In the developer applications is a program called “Quartz Composer”. Open it up and start playing with it. It’s amazing! As we are all graphics people here, it shouldn’t look too much different from your run-of-the-mill, tree-based compositing application. It’s almost like a node-based version of Apple’s Motion. “Core Image Fun House” is also super cool. Apple here has taken a cue from the Microsoft playbook; “Embrace and Extend”.
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