Adobe Industry Reflections - Where is Adobe Headed?

Written by Expert Andy Anderson

After acquiring Macromedia earlier this year, many people are wondering exactly where Adobe is headed. Actually, in order to answer that question, we'll need to step back a bit and look at the big picture. So, let's begin by getting in our "Way Back" machine and looking at the history of Adobe. Seat belts fastened... let's go.

Adobe Systems, Incorporated is an American computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California, USA. In December 1982 John Warnock and Charles Geschke, established Adobe Systems, Inc. after departing Xerox. Their goal was to develop and eventually sell the PostScript page description language. Historically, they were in the right place at the right time... Apple Computer licensed PostScript in 1985 for use in its LaserWriter printers. This not only helped to spark the desktop publishing revolution, but also gave Adobe the influx of cash needed for further growth.

In the mid-1980s, Adobe decided it was time to enter the software market and Adobe Illustrator was born, Illustrator is a vector-based drawing program that was originally designed to run on the Macintosh platform, and later ported to the Windows operating system. Adobe even created a clunky version of Illustrator to run on the ill-fated neXT computer, created by Steve Jobs.

Adobe was far from done. In 1989, Adobe unveiled the king of its applications, Adobe Photoshop, again for the Macintosh platform, and it didn't take long for Photoshop to dominate the market. Adobe was off and running.

Fast forward to today and Adobe's trilogy of power: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. These three applications alone dominate the market. If you add applications such as Acrobat, Adobe seems to be batting a thousand percent, and in a very real sense dominates the print-to-press market.

Unfortunately, Adobe was not just interested in the print and press world; they wanted a bigger stake in the wonderful world of the web, so applications such as, GoLive were invented. GoLive was a good start; however, it had difficulty chipping into Macromedia Dreamweaver's lead in the web design industry. And, of course, there was always Macromedia Flash. So what did Adobe do? They went out and acquired Macromedia, and brought them into the family.

The incorporation of Macromedia added several new applications to the group, namely, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Freehand, Director, and a few other bit players. With this addition, Adobe is not just a small player in the web world, they're a major player.

Now, let's examine how all this plays out in the future. Adobe has claimed that they have no intention of abandoning Freehand; however, they didn't specifically say that they would ever come up with another upgrade either. Anyone out there remember Adobe PageMaker? Adobe switched to InDesign and PageMaker died a slow death. Logically speaking, why would Adobe maintain two vector-based applications - Freehand and Illustrator? In terms of development, marketing and cost, it doesn't make sense. I could be wrong; however, don't hold your breath for any more upgrades to Freehand.

In my opinion, that takes Illustrator back to its roots of being an illustrative application, and not a typesetting application. Freehand had an advantage of being multiple pages, and Illustrator never really moved beyond the creation of graphics on a single page. If Adobe does let Freehand out to dry, there will be a lot of loyal users of the application that will be real upset. The good news is that Adobe is a caring company, and they do listen to their customers; Rest assured that Adobe will do everything possible to help make the transition from Freehand to Illustrator as painless as possible.

The big question on many Freehand users' minds is, "Will Illustrator one day allow for multiple pages?" Don't hold your breath. In this writer's opinion, Adobe wants users to do their artwork in Illustrator, and their page layout in InDesign. This, when you stop and think about it, actually makes perfect sense, at least to me.

Next in line would be Dreamweaver, and I don't believe that it will be going anywhere soon. As a matter of fact, it's GoLive (an Adobe product), which will probably suffer the same fate as Freehand. Again, Adobe claims that there are no plans to dump GoLive; however, for the same reasons stated for Illustrator, it just doesn't make much sense to maintain two web layout applications. On the other hand, Dreamweaver may eventually acquire some of the features that GoLive users loved, like designing on the Grid.

The last application I'll mention is Fireworks, and I don't really see this program surviving the transition. When you think about it, Adobe dropped ImageReady in release CS3, and put many of its web design features, like animation, into Photoshop. Look for more web features to be incorporated into Photoshop.

So, with the acquisition of Macromedia, is Adobe finished with moving into new territories? I don't think so. Adobe is quietly looking at some wire frame animation applications. So be looking for them to make some in-roads into the world of three-dimensional animation; in everything from simple images to Hollywood movie production.

I can sum it up by saying that Adobe Systems is a growing company that has never forgotten its roots. They are still customer centered in their approach to the future, and their applications reflect this with each evolution. With this in mind, look for even more user-friendly interfaces that will be customizable to the individual user's needs, as well as a common look between applications. In addition, look for the ability to easily exchange color, style and graphics palettes between applications, as well as central core features like dictionaries and the like. Some of these things are already available, albeit on a limited basis.

I'll end with these words. If you like what Adobe is doing to make our lives as designers better and more productive, you haven''t seen anything yet.

Trivia Note: The company name - "Adobe" - comes from Adobe Creek, which ran behind the house of one of the company's founders... and now you know the rest of the story.