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December 3, 2007
Understanding Adobe
Understanding Adobe: Martin LaMonica of CNET interviewed Bruce Chizen last month, but it's reprinted today on the occasion of his transition out of the Adobe CEO role. Key line: "The reality is that Adobe has been a platform company from day 1. It just never thought of itself as a platform company." PostScript helped layout bridge printers, and PDF helped reconcile printers and display screens. Director and Flash helped rich-media interactivity bridge operating systems and browsers. Each architectural investment provided new opportunities for Adobe, and for others, to build on top of these platforms. The business model may change from OEM sales to shrinkwrap to services, but the approach through the past 25 years has been similar: invest in new capabilities for everyone, and realize a return by making these platforms easier and more economical for more people to use. There's lot of other good context in these two articles, but Bruce closes with a bit on the new Adobe Integrated Runtime: "AIR is absolutely the next big platform for Adobe... not only the PC but [eventually] mobile handsets, cable boxes, and other non-PC environments... we think we have a unique advantage because we're not forcing the people who develop this stuff to learn a lot of new things. It's evolutionary for them, even though for the end user, it'll end up being revolutionary."
Posted by JohnDowdell at December 3, 2007 10:36 AM