Adobe will drop desktop apps to become web only

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2007-10-18T130541Z_01_N17292526_RTRUKOC_0_US-ADOBE-SERVICES.xml

by jsjenkins168 • 19 years ago

17 27 19 years ago

today.reuters.com

gscott• 19 years ago

I believe this will be a new way to force upgrade consumers, instead of buying software and running it for years now you will be forced to pay monthly and over the long run pay more and if you unsubscribe it won't work at all.

e1ven• 19 years ago

Wow. This is a very bold double-down on Flash and Flex.

This is why Adobe bought Macromedia- They see the future as web-based applications, and they want control the API. Microsoft got to where it was by controlling the API people code in, and the environment applications run. Adobe's showing that they're in a position to control the API for what's next.

This is a very clever move. They're signaling to developers who might be tempted by Silverlight that they are eating their own dogfood on Flex, and betting the farm on their tech.

Given the huge investment that Adobe has in existing desktop applications, the implications of this are huge. Flash/Flex is already a Cross Platform development environment that's installed on 99% of machines.

They're looking to make it a par with Cocoa or .Net in developers minds... And it has a good chance of working.

queensnake• 19 years ago

That's great, cuz I'm looking forward to AIR; a single platform that covers all the bases, plus NBL.

tocomment• 19 years ago

That's a big task. Photoshop? What about Premiere the video editing software? Do those really make sense as web apps?

Of course it would be neat if they could sell you bursts of processing power from huge servers somewhere. That would be an improvement over desktop versions.

uuilly2• 19 years ago

Yeah, and what about upload speeds? Are people really going to upload gigs of DV's and .raw's to edit them? My upload speeds on a consumer broadband connection have not dramatically increased in the last 5 years.

To me web app replacements of desktop apps sometimes feel like a camping trip. You can survive just fine, but not comfortably. Esp if your app needs to talk to the GPU, iPhone or other devices...

That said invisible updates and implicit backups are great.

rms2• 19 years ago

I don't think they are requiring them all to be run as web apps, but they are porting to their web/desktop platform, Flex as a sign of the power and flexability of the platform.

DocSavage• 19 years ago

It would make sense if their future creative tools use AIR, which is similar to Microsoft's Silverlight. You'd be able to operate on local files and the programs would still work even if you lost your net connection.

alaskamiller3• 19 years ago

You don't get it. AIR solves all of that. It's offline web-based app. You don't have a connection, fine. Do what you need to do but the second you're online, we validate your application and send you live updates.

Imagine a world 10 years from now where everyone bought a fully enclosed computer like you would buy an iPhone now, but you have to pay a monthly subscription service to get updates or to use it. That's why all these companies are making web-os, thinking that's the way of the future. It's going to be horrible.

gabrielleydon• 19 years ago

Should help with piracy problems also.

lst• 19 years ago

This kind of thing will never happen -- successfully(!) -- the general trust level in the web is declining continuously...

fauigerzigerk• 19 years ago

I think there are two different questions. One is how we're going to pay for software and the other is how software is going to be made available and kept up to date technically. Regarding the latter, it doesn't look like there will be that binary choice between web and desktop for 10 more years so I'm not sure what exactly Adobe is going to drop. Local storage? Access to USB devices? I don't think so. It will become a matter of interpretation by marketing folks whether a particular application is called a web app or a desktop app. I mean that's what AIR is all about, isn't it?

alaskamiller3• 19 years ago

Another company made similar comments some time ago. Some also-ran called Sun with something called Java VM. But I guess it's different this time. Obviously AIR is soooo much better.

sosuke• 19 years ago

AIR is for the desktop. Why would you expect Adobe to use it to deploy their web applications? It is no where near powerful enough to take on the tasks of the Creative Suite either.

"Adobe AIR lets developers use their existing web development skills in HTML, AJAX, Flash and Flex to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop."

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/

juanpablo• 19 years ago

I think a lot of future apps will not be web-only nor desktop-only but an hybrid: Desktop apps using the Internet for collaboration and as a source of information.

Like Google Earth but developed with portability in mind.

jsjenkins168• 19 years ago

This is where Adobe AIR and MSFT Siverlight come in

zandorg2• 19 years ago

Great, so my TCP/IP drops while I'm editing my wedding video and I have to wait for it to go back up.

"Broadband, as quick as it gets, is still going to have some limitations in the short term,"

Which indicates they're gambling (heavily) on broadband speeds going through the roof, so those gigs take a minute to upload.

Further, it says people aren't paying $400 for an application anymore.

In other words, they're going to see a heavy revenue hit soon, a revenue timebomb, and I see their stock price halving.

I don't own any stock, etc, etc disclaimers.

alaskamiller3• 19 years ago

Let's see... $19.99 a month indefinitely or $400 a pop. SAAS is going to be everyone's new wet dream.

zandorg2• 19 years ago

My point is basically the same - that the people who don't pay $400 won't want to pay $19.99 a month either.

bootload• 19 years ago

Bruce Chizen is the CEO so I was curious to see if they have the technology to do this. Then I remembered AIR ~ http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/devt/FE2043E499460693CC2...

"... AIR is a runtime program that allows developers to create cross-platform desktop applications with the same technologies they use for building web-based applications, such as HTML, AJAX and Flash. At the Adobe MAX 2007 user conference in Chicago on Monday, executives confirmed AIR's importance to the company's long-term strategy ..."

So it is technically possible, How will it effect the bottom line? Who knows. Many companies have stumbled when changing programming paradigms ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_paradigm

nandan• 19 years ago

Validation.

http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html

http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

rms2• 19 years ago

Never saw that "The Other Road Ahead" essay before, thanks for the link. He proposed a web service quasi-operating system for people uncomfortable with normal computers in that essay and I applied to YC with that idea.

GammaStats• 19 years ago

What about people who don't have (never have had, and never will have) their computer hooked up to the net? They are screwed...

Some people keep their computers off the net for security reasons. My father keeps one of his off the net so that he doesn't have to worry so much about viruses.

And no, he doesn't want to use Linux... And even if he did, ProTools isn't available for Linux.

Note: to be fair, he doesn't (to my knowledge) use Adobe programs on his studio computer.

Adobe will drop desktop apps to become web only

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