I don't see everything coming. Not even close. But I saw this one. Google's Picasa has been offering online image editing for a while. It even supports .psd. So Adobe responds with free Photoshop on the web. Really? Yeah, really.
I found Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen's
conversation with c/net pretty invigorating. He makes it sound pretty obvious, actually:
"If we offered a host-based version of Photoshop that's Photoshop-branded (and is) potentially better than Picasa, you'd probably go the Photoshop route because of your belief in the Photoshop brand and the quality associated with the brand," Chizen said.
My favorite part of the story might be the next sentence:
A Google representative was not immediately available for comment on Adobe's plans.
No kidding.
This one hit the news in a pretty big way because it's
Photoshop. But I think a lot of us might have missed that Adobe launched Remix
just yesterday, a stripped-down version of Premiere elements available free to Photobucket members. There's no way to export the video off the web, and Adobe clearly wants you to buy Elements instead.
Dot: Adobe's application platform -- the platform that we in this industry care about at least as much as our OS, if not more.
Dot: The web as a platform.
Dot: Flash as the most dominant web application platform ever....
Dot: ...now owned by Adobe.
I'm just connecting those dots.
Sure, it's happening for consumer stuff first. But, hey, it took business the better part of a decade to figure out what to do with the web. We're just now seeing the first glimmerings of applications as we understand them being deployed on the web.
Maybe we're another decade away from this meaning anything for us in the professional media creation world.
I don't think so.
