lab188

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Cringley says Apple will buy Adobe

Cringely thinks Apple will buy Adobe in 2008

Cringely’s latest post posits that Apple will buy Adobe in 2008. He makes a good case, but “Someone’s buying Adobe this year” seems to be a perennial favorite for technology company watchers.
The purchase would certainly tweak Microsoft, as an operating system company (Apple) would then own a media distribution technology (Flash), and the tools to create the content (Photoshop, Capitvate, Premiere). If you view Microsoft’s introduction of Sliverlight as a operating system component hedge against Flash, then Cringely’s hypothesis may not be so far out.
Thinking about Flash often leads to a narrow view of the product. People tend to think of animation when thinking about Flash, but the better use of Flash is delivering and manipulating video. Consider the ubiquity of YouTube today as compared to two years ago. Apple does have QuickTime, but Google’s acquistion of YouTube vaulted over QuickTime because it let anyone with a camera create content. Now, 90% of that content may only appeal to the creator and his 3 friends, but putting ease of content creation into the hands of users leads to widespread use. Apple buying Adobe would potentially pit Flash Video against YouTube.
Or maybe Cringely just wanted to start off the new year with a wild one. Buying ADBE could be an interesting play.