thomas fitzgerald.net

All this talk recently about the possibility of Apple buying Adobe has me wondering, what would happen if such an earth shattering acquisition did happen. I’m not trying to discuss the likelihood of it, because frankly it’s pretty remote, but imagine for a second if Apple did go down that route. It would send ripples through the technology industry the likes of which have never been seen before. Windows users would immediately go into panic overdrive and cries of “monopoly” would be heard across the globe. But what would it mean for the average consumer? Who would be the winners and losers if such a take over took place?

The biggest immediate winner in one way would probably be the consumer. I know this though might shock any Windows using Photoshop customer out there, but Apple’s typical move after purchasing a company is to lower its prices to more normal levels. I could easily see them lowering the price of photoshop to around $200. I could be wrong, but I suspect that the gains in pushing hardware would easily offset any potential lost revenue from lowering the price. Plus, Adobe’s overseas pricing is just plain ridiculous, so Apple ownership of their product line would probably see the non-US price be a little more justifiable.

Such a buyout would be somewhat poetic for Apple too. In one foul swoop it would gain total dominance over the market that pretty much made the macintosh, that of the creative professional. Not only would they get the key applications used by creative pros but also several of the key technologies behind the entire segment, namely postscript and pdf. Considering the level with which PDF is integrated into OS X Im sure owning this technology would be a welcome benefit to Apple’s engineers.

Of course the key question on everyones mind if this ever did happen would be what would Apple do about Adobe’s Windows applications. Traditionally they have killed off the Windows versions after acquiring a company. When they bought Logic and Shake they killed off the Windows versions of those apps, however the ratio of Mac to Windows sales of Adobe’s main Applications would make it tricky for Apple to do the same without causing major PR problems for itself. Then again, if the company could get away with it it would be a major blow to Microsoft which is already struggling with adoption of Vista. I’m sure the number of people out there who need to run one of Adobe’s many applications is pretty substantial, and I’m sure these people, many of whom are not overjoyed with Vista in the first place, would rather switch to the Mac than have to do without their chosen application. Windows users would be up in arms though. It would be a major effort for Apple’s PR department to settle the dust from such a monumental shift in the platform balance. One part of me thinks that Apple would be crazy to tick off that many potential customers, but another part of me cant help but see Apple’s position in that situation being something along the lines of “screw ‘em”.

Some of Adobe’s applications would undoubtedly bite the dust too. Premiere would be killed without a doubt, along with Encore and Soundbooth. However, Apple would gain one of the biggest names in the video post production industry, namely After Effects. This would compliment its pro video applications nicely. I don’t know what would happen to Apple’s own Motion in such circumstances. Motion is a fairly unique product that doesn’t really correspond to After Effects despite the fact that they both do motion graphics. Lightroom would probably not be long for this world either if that happened. Despite some of the complaints you read about Aperture, I think Apple’s offering is stronger overall. I suspect that Lightroom would be stripped for it’s interesting bits and put out of to pasture. Apple would get Adobe’s camera raw technology though and more importantly, control over the DNG format.

It’s hard to know if Photoshop elements would survive either. Apple likes nice simple minimalist product lines and Adobe’s is anything but. If they did lower the price of Photoshop, would there be a need for elements. Perhaps as part of iLife or integrated with iPhoto.

There are two key elements of Adobe’s portfolio though that would be of huge potential benefit to Apple, far out weighing all the others. Firstly, and to a lesser extent it would gain a foothold in the internet space. Apple at the moment has little or no presence outside of iTunes and it’s fairly basic iWeb offering. With Adobe they would instantly gain a portfolio of Applications and Technologies to give them a major piece of this market, namely Dreamweaver, the leading web design application, and Flash. Although Apple has never made any moves into this space before you can’t help but wonder why one of the most fundamental delivery methods of modern times is not in their portfolio of creative applications.

But it is flash that is potentially the crown jewel in the Adobe crown that would make the whole thing worth it. Forget for a second some of Jobs’ comments about flash with regard to the iPhone and consider just how pervasive flash is, or more importantly flash video. Gaining control over flash would give Apple control over the majority of internet video, an area they have more than a stake in. Apple could push the direction of flash video and its development to favor its own operating system and its devices. Flash on the iPhone would be far less of an issue too if Apple’s engineers got hold of the source code.

Of course all this is just complete fantasy. The chances of them even wanting to go after Adobe are slim enough and the chances of them pulling it off are even slimmer. Yet the sheer excitement of the potential for such a huge eruption to take place in the technology industry is worth a little idle speculation. Of course they do have a boat load of cash and did just hire a high profile company lawyer who specializes in mergers and acquisitions, so who knows, maybe that slim chance is bigger than it seams.

UPDATE: Fixed Broken Links (Apologies)