Adobe Photoshop Express
Alright, anyone who isn’t living under a rock has heard about Adobe Photoshop Express by now. But, the big question is what on earth is Adobe trying to do?
It seems to me that this is basically a “me too!” response to a lot of great online Flash-based apps out there like Aviary.
It also seems to me that Adobe has been on the “me too!” wagon for a while now, with their releases of software that are direct competitors, not innovators. This is sad for me because I still have (somewhere) the Adobe 88 Beta discs my father had - back then Illustrator was just “Adobe 88″.
Adobe was the innovator and leader in computer graphics at the time, and then made the brilliant move to buy Photoshop, which is the single most adopted piece of professional software on the planet and has spun a synonymous brand/function name, kind of like the iPod, or Bandaid.
What strikes me here though, is that a once true innovator and creator of entire industries is now struggling to keep up, and buys more proprietary software than it invents.
Is the key here to stay small and agile? Can a company the size of Adobe allow innovation, critical thought, and truly brilliant ideas slip through the crack? Or is it going to be relegated to the Microsoft camp of buying up everything that poses a threat, and bloating existing software by just integrating anything new that might be a need to someone somewhere?
I hope for Adobe’s sake, and for the sake of the community at large that there will eventually be a bright spot in the future where Adobe’s origins in invention break out and something truly new and exciting is born.
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