Yikes! Don't know what to make of this so soon after the merger but...
According to an Adobe press release dated yesterday, 15 June, Stephen Elop, former CEO of Macromedia and current President of Worldwide Field Operations, has resigned. There isn't really any more information than that except that Elop will remain on till 5 December....wonder if he'll make MAX?
What's the consensus on this? Adobe cleaning house? or does Elop have something else up his sleeve? Maybe he's going to join Jeremy Allaire at Brightcove?
Save the date! October 23-26, 2006! Las Vegas, Nevada! MAX 2006!
This will be the first MAX since the merger. Adobe folks were present last year (remember the guys in the suits?) but couldn't really say too much since the merger had yet to close. This year, we'll get the full treatment: Adobe goodness on top of all that Macromedia richness. Sometimes MAX is a bit of a cheer-fest, preaching to the choir, but just having all those designers and developers in one place is always inspirational. So mark the date, keep checking the site, or sign up for the emails. More info will surely be coming soon!
Apollo, the code-name for Adobe's Universal Client, is stating to pick-up steam it seems. I'm sure that the folks over at Adobe have been working their butts off on it, but few details have been forthcoming. In the last month though, that's beginning to change. A big article on c|net, "Flash to jump beyond the browser," in early May really gave the best overview so far. More recently, John Dowdell pointed out an article from PDFZone on a preso at PDF2006 that speaks to the document community's thoughts on such a client. And just yesterday, I saw that Mike Chambers will be offering a workshop at September's Flashforward conference called, "Building Your First Apollo Application."
Macromedia Central was a really interesting move outside the browser, but Apollo is shaping up to be in a totally different sphere, not just outside of the browser, but across devices. I just hope that Adobe keeps it svelte so that it moves seamlessly across those devices and isn't so bloated that its actual uses are limited.
If you missed the MAX 2005 presentation about the potentials of Apollo, check it out here (Day 1, "Experience Vision" segment).
I've been thinking about the brouhaha a couple of weeks ago concerning Adobe's moves to protect their trademark of the Flash name. Geoff Stearns had to rename his FlashObject among other changes around. Maybe minor. After all, a rose by any other name...you get the point...but I'm wondering exactly where the dilution of Adobe trademarks really plays out? Is it with the developers that use the authoring tools and the technology? or is it with the client that we build things for? or is it with the end consumer of the things we all build?
I think we developers are fairly savvy about the tools we use. So I'm not worried to much about us. The biggest problem here is that the word "flash" is so generic that without qualification (e.g. "Macromedia Flash"), you're just as likely to get an exhibitionist site in a web search as a useful development site!
Jan Kabili of our blog sibling, The Unofficial Photoshop Weblog, pointed out another good John Nack post
earlier this week. Adobe is looking for commentary from bloggers and web designers on ways to improve Fireworks for its
future integration into Photoshop and the Adobe Creative Suite of applications. I would like Fireworks to continue on
its current 8 path of integration with Flash and possibly replace ImageReady as Adobe's web image creator. I could even
see them integrating Fireworks into the consumer level Adboe products (like the gallery applications) as a way to easily
add home made graphics to original images and create easy web pages for the budding amature web designer.
Our
blog brother in design, The
Unofficial Photoshop Weblog has the low down on the John Nack interview by Inside Mac (download via
iTunes). The interview has lots of info on all things Flash and Adobe, including the Flash-Photoshop integration
and the future of the Mac Universal Binaries of Adobe products. Be sure to download the latest and listen to it
yourself.
Wow that sounds ominous doesn't it... Actually I just
want to direct you a an interview Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen did with University of Pennsylvania's Knowledge@Wharton a
short while ago. They asked him all the important questions including how the Macromedia acquisition is going to change
Adobe's future and ways Adobe will be able to use its new found control of Flash. They get into a discussion of the
newly re-named engagement platform. You can either read the article at the link or download it for later listening.
Adobe held their annual
Financial Analyst Meeting on Tuesday (my birthday!). I'm only part way through the recorded webcast (it was a day long
event!), but its worth the viewing if you're interested in the future of the company and the products they make. And we
all know, we should be interested! To keep all the was good about the Macromedia community, to merge and grow it with
the Adobe community, we have to stay involved! So check out all the
presentations here!
I'm sure I'll have more to say later, but my first question to folks: what do you
think about the Flash Platform becoming the Adobe Engagement Platform?
Since the release of the new Mac Book Pro and iMac with Intel I have been considering when to make the
upgrade and move on to a new laptop. A few things are keeping me in check though. First off, this is a first gen or
Alpha product that is going to have bugs (this is jus the nature of technology). Second off there are no 'Universal'
binaries for Studio or any other Adobe products for that matter. But what about Rosetta? Well It doesn't look like
Rosetta is very nice to Flash's new step brother. Photoshop CS2 runs much slower on the new Intel iMacs in speed tests,
according to Ars Technica. Plus, according to
the latest Photoshop TV video podcast, Adobe has a previous history of not release incremental updates, hence they
think Photoshop will not be 'Universal' til CS3 (grab the vodcast yourself and watch
between 16:40 and 18:10 for more info). But Photoshop isn't Studio. Actually, now that Flash and Macromedia are tied to
Adobe, I think Flash and therefore Studio will be tied (at least loosely) to Photoshop. So if you feel the need for
speed, it is probably a good idea to hold off on purchasing the new Mac Intels. At least wait till someone jumps on the
bandwagon with official speed tests for Flash and FLV encoding.
Currently I'm going to consider a semi-update to a
'new' PowerBook instead and pray Flash Player 8.5 includes the first Universal Binary from Adobe, because as of right
now Flash Player 8 does npt appeast to work in Safari on Intel without forcing Safari to run under Rosetta.
On
Monday Adobe grabbed a DRM company that creates lock downs for PDF files via a client-server method and document
encryption. This seems old hat in the textbook and business documentation world, but I wonder if Adobe will use this
method to create a new SWF based DRM. For more clues I sat at work listening to the Gillmor Gang discuss DRM and video. They brought up the new Google Video store and how Google is using Flash (7 if you must know) to
display its videos. One member of the gang (I forget his name) said (aroung the 18 minute mark) that Adobe and
Macromedia's merger should bring DRM to Flash in the future so Flash can become a more viable content distribution
model. I'm all for it... er let me clarify, I'd prefer DRM free content for ease of use etc, but if it must be there I
want cross platform content, like Flash. In order words, that new VH1 video site and the new Comedy Central video
service are closed to my iBook due to lack of vision on the part of their developers (and the music industry, but
that's another story), but if the content was Flash based (like CNN's free in page
video) then the content would be semi cross platform (sorry Linux, wait for 8.5). The only question is: Is SWF (and On2
by association) better than WMV and M4V?
Knee jerk reaction correction time... yes I did have a knee jerk reaction to what I thought would be a really cool thing. A combo Flash player and Adobe reader plugin and application would hopefully mean a possible slimmer (read more memory efficient) Reader and a more robust Player... but I guess it just wasn't meant to be. Numerouscorrections have been flowing out of the former Macromedia heavy-weights so I thought I should write up a quick oops post to help move us forward.
Let's look at this from another angle. Would you prefer a combo app? Maybe an Apple Preview Application mixed with the Flash player in a Flash Paper way... or how about we take some Acrobat functionality and bundle it into Actionscript. I would love to dynamically edit and create PDFs on the fly (for free... I paid a few hundred for the app already, sorry Derek) then we could add a print to PDF functionality to all Flash-based apps that would mimic that great Apple print function... What do you think?
What better way to celebrate the season...the merger season that is...than with a humorous holiday take on the whole thing! Mark Ruger Kruger (!) over at ColdFusion Muse has adapted "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the Season of Adobe.
Looks like the merger completion brings with it another big (and not unexpected) merge:
What are Adobe's plans for Flash Player and Adobe Reader? Our long-term plan is to develop a "universal client" by combining PDF, Flash and HTML in a single, integrated runtime. Of course, we will continue delivering the Flash Player as a small, efficient runtime for content and applications on the web, and Adobe Reader for viewing and interacting with PDF documents and forms. The integration of these technologies into a unified framework creates a ubiquitous platform that runs on virtually every device, and dramatically expands the opportunities to create compelling solutions.
I guess Flash Paper is just a vectorized Adobe Reader now. Plus SVG will soon be fully consumed by Flash. The only question I might have is... where is my PDF manipulation ActionScript?
What does the future hold? Well Group Manager for Adobe’s Developer Relations Team, Ben Watson is blogging with his personal crystal ball (and probably an internal memo describing the product map). He says Flex and Cold Fusion are getting some LiveCycle injections and he has even seen a Flash application mixed with Acrobat (like FlashPaper on steroids, I'm sure).
TUAW has the scoop including a list of his predictions. I just wonder what cool new apps they haven't thought up yet. Why not release a Flash AfterEffects hybrid that uses Flash as the GUI to create a video effects program that simpler than iMovie yet cooler than anything on the market.
Adobe starts its new week of Macromedia ownership with a huge release. Now you will be able to get the bundle that most of us already have. First up is the new Adobe design bundle coming with a full Adobe Creative Suite Premium and a copy of Macromedia Flash Professional 8. Second is the Adobe Web Bundle coming with Adobe Creative Suite Premium and Macromedia Studio. Both are set to be the cost you might have expected to pay for the seperate software pieces, but now they all come in one convient box (with a savings of a couple hundred dollars each). If you haven't upgraded to 8 and still have that older copy of Photoshop break out the wallet. Plus, you could always wait for that new video bundle their offering. Personally, I think I'll wait for the next round of upgrades before shelling out the two grand these require.
Yikes! Don't know what to make of this so soon after the merger but...
Jan Kabili of our blog sibling, 
Our
blog brother in design, 
Wow that sounds ominous doesn't it... Actually I just
want to direct you a an interview Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen did with University of Pennsylvania's Knowledge@Wharton a
short while ago. They asked him all the important questions including how the Macromedia acquisition is going to change
Adobe's future and ways Adobe will be able to use its new found control of Flash. They get into a discussion of the
newly re-named engagement platform. You can either read the article at the link or download it for later listening.
Since the release of the new Mac Book Pro and iMac with Intel I have been considering when to make the
upgrade and move on to a new laptop. A few things are keeping me in check though. First off, this is a first gen or
Alpha product that is going to have bugs (this is jus the nature of technology). Second off there are no 'Universal'
binaries for Studio or any other Adobe products for that matter. But what about Rosetta? Well It doesn't look like
Rosetta is very nice to Flash's new step brother. Photoshop CS2 runs much slower on the new Intel iMacs in speed tests,
On
Monday Adobe grabbed a DRM company that creates lock downs for PDF files via a client-server method and document
encryption. This seems old hat in the textbook and business documentation world, but I wonder if Adobe will use this
method to create a new SWF based DRM. For more clues I sat at work listening to the 
What does the future hold? Well Group Manager for Adobe’s Developer Relations Team, Ben Watson is blogging with his personal crystal ball (and probably an internal memo describing the product map). He says Flex and Cold Fusion are getting some LiveCycle injections and he has even seen a Flash application mixed with Acrobat (like FlashPaper on steroids, I'm sure). 
Adobe starts its new week of Macromedia ownership with a huge release. Now you will be able to get the bundle that most of us already have. First up is the new Adobe design bundle coming with a full Adobe Creative Suite Premium and a copy of Macromedia Flash Professional 8. Second is the Adobe Web Bundle coming with Adobe Creative Suite Premium and Macromedia Studio. Both are set to be the cost you might have expected to pay for the seperate software pieces, but now they all come in one convient box (with a savings of a couple hundred dollars each). If you haven't upgraded to 8 and still have that older copy of Photoshop break out the wallet. Plus, you could always wait for that new video bundle their offering. Personally, I think I'll wait for the next round of upgrades before shelling out the two grand these require.
