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Posted by Richard Ziade on October 2, 2005, 08:03PM

Microsoft Should Buy Adobe

Why do all the other bloggers get to walk through pie-in-the-sky buy out scenarios?

With the world changing such that platforms and applications and data and services are getting all jumbled up, Microsoft should dip into it’s sock drawer and buy Adobe. Here’s why:

  1. With all these goofball applications being delivered on the Web, Microsoft needs to focus on applications that leverage and emphasize hardware. Adobe’s product suite – driven by Photoshop – does just that. You can’t deliver Photoshop via AJAX.
  2. Flash is a superior interface design platform than AJAX/DHTML. A well-designed rich internet application on Flash can run circles around anything done on AJAX – with a lot less work. Also, Flash continues to push the envelope as far as leveraging hardware – video, graphics, sound, etc. See #1.
  3. The Adobe PDF format is the de facto standard for delivering electronic representations of paper assets. No matter how cute Web 2.0 gets, a significant percentage of business – from law to publishing – relies on PDF.
  4. Video via Flash runs circles around Real or even Microsoft’s own media player.
  5. Through the Macromedia acquisition, Adobe acquired the PAF (Portable Application Format) to go along with its PDF. Macromedia’s Flex product brings the power of Flash application development to traditional developers (i.e. non-designers).
  6. Many have argued that Microsoft will struggle in the Web 2.0 world because they don’t know how to ship software. Flash as a platform is compact, unobtrusive and ubiquitous. It is possibly the most widely deployed platform in the world - across operating systems and devices.
  7. Google Video uses Flash. See #4. :)

So there you have it. Hopefully someone at Microsoft gets wind of this, gathers the loose change from the glove compartment and goes to town before it’s too late.

Or maybe Google should…


Comments

I would prefer Apple do the buying... or Google. But I don"t think we"ll see that. Or M$ either. Adobe/MM is going to be a serious competitor to M$. I can't wait to see how it plays out.

Posted by: ericd at October 2, 2005 8:54 PM

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that wouldn't be allowed by the Gov.

Posted by: Daniel Roberts at October 2, 2005 9:50 PM

Daniel - if all of these trends play out like everyone is predicting, then Microsoft has a pretty strong defense: we don't dominate anything anymore. Look at what Google/etc/etc. have done!

Posted by: Richard Ziade at October 2, 2005 10:43 PM

Great, just what we need: An annoying paperclip in Photoshop! No, please, Microsoft, keep your mittens off of Adobe. If Microsoft was to buy Adobe, it would most like be to kill off Flash (kill off as in "leave alone for a bit, then cripple, then remove from the market once irrelevant".)

Posted by: Aral Balkan at October 3, 2005 3:22 AM

This is never going to happen, Adode/MM are simply going to pound M$ into the ground.

A couple of software cycles down the line Adobe/MM will be shipping their all encompassing "Über Suite".

And maybe it'll run on it's own Flash/Flex/Zorn based OS?

Posted by: Jolyon Russ at October 3, 2005 5:09 AM

They don't need and don't want to buy Adobe imho.

Look at the tools and technologies they announced at PDC05, they clearly want to use their own stuff: Expression, XAML, WPF/E, Atlas, etc.

Things people should start to realize is that even if Flash and PDF are very good and widely used formats, they are still proprietary formats,
nothing prevent others proprietary formats to compet with them.

People should not underestimate how fast XML based other proprietary formats (XAML, metro, etc.) could spread and give SWF and PDF formats very serious competition.

As you can see here in "XUL/XUI/XAML and friends"
http://www.mail-archive.com/xul-announce@lists.sourceforge.net/msg00275.html

there are a lot of players trying to find solution for web 2.0, XAML is one among them and really it should not be underestimated imho.

Posted by: zwetan at October 3, 2005 7:38 AM

I think this is a stupid idea. Microsoft would do away with ColdFusion if they got their hot little hands on it. Why have CF when you want to promote ASP?

Posted by: Lola Lee at October 3, 2005 9:34 AM

Agree with Daniel R - competion commision who never allow it, but if the browser as OS thing pans out as i think it might with high speed broadband, then surely google with all its spare cash might think about it?

Posted by: snorky at October 3, 2005 4:06 PM

What about Google eventually buying Yahoo? It's insane, but who knows - in this industry, anything's possible...

Posted by: Rachel at October 12, 2005 8:07 PM

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