Opinion: David Coursey says that if Microsoft was going to war against Adobe, the assault would be more organized than it has been with Metro and Acrylic."So, what's this about Microsoft deciding it wants to compete with Adobe?"
The question came from a friend of mine, a Mac user who knows I follow Microsoft. Like seemingly all Mac business users, she's also an Adobe customer. Any threat to Adobe's Acrobat or Creative Suite would concern her greatly.
While I was aware of Microsoft's recent announcements of the Metro printing architecture and Acrylic, a freehand drawing program now in beta, I hadn't really investigated them. But, I promised I would, and here's my report:
On the Acrylic front, I spoke with Forest Key, a group product manager in Microsoft's developer organization.
It's interesting that this graphics product is being managed by the same group that's responsible for Visual Studio and Microsoft's other software development tools.
That could change, of course, but a real desktop application would be expected to live in a different product group.
Click here to read more reaction from analysts and experts to Microsoft's release of the Acrylic beta.
The history of what is now called Acrylic might be helpful in understanding what Microsoft wants to do with the product.
Formerly known as Creature House Expression, Microsoft purchased the Hong Kong-based company in 2003.
My impression is Redmond wanted the programmers more than the product, which Microsoft has been giving away via a Web site.
Previously, the product had been known by other brand names, such as Fractal Expression. MetaCreations also distributed the product at one point during its life.
According to Key, Microsoft had been soliciting customer feedback on what should be added to Expression, and the result is the current public beta, code-named "Acrylic," introduced earlier this month.
"This is an artist-focused tool," Key told me, adding that "probably 99 percent of users" employ a tablet device of some kind for input.
By "tablet device" I mean something like a Wacom tablet, not a Tablet PC.
In updating Expression, Microsoft took a vector-based drawing program and added pixel-based drawing and live special effects.
Microsoft also added an innovative tool for stitching digital photos into panoramas.
No, this feature doesn't make sense in a freehand drawing program, but Microsoft wanted to beta test the photo stitcher, and Acrylic offered the opportunity.
Key told me that at present Microsoft is simply interested in user feedback and has no specific plan for bringing Acrylic to market. The beta version, however, times out on Oct. 1.
Asked specifically about competing with Adobe, whose Illustrator product offers similar features, Key said he expected Acrylic would be used by graphics professionals alongside "many other products."
As for Metro, I haven't spoken to anyone at Microsoft about it specifically, but have read the materials, news coverage and commentary and an interview with Adrian Ford, CTO of Global Graphics, Microsoft's partner in creating Metro.
Next Page: Seeing no real signs of an assault on Adobe.
From what I can tell, Metro looks like a fix for the outdated printing subsystem in Windows.
It is not, in the short term, a competitor with Adobe Acrobat and the PDF document format.
The print engine features are certainly welcome, giving Windows printers the ability to actually print what applications like PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat can display on-screen.
Pam Deziel, director of Acrobat marketing at Adobe, told me that Acrobat has such a technological head start and wide customer acceptance that Microsoft would have a lot of catching up to do before Metro could become a real competitor.
Unless Microsoft can bring a huge new value to portable documents, I'd encourage Redmond to add PDF functionality to its own products rather than compete where cooperation probably makes the most sense.
Adobe's take on Acrylic isn't outright derision, but the spokesperson I talked to didn't seem especially concerned, either.
Click here to read Andreas Pfeiffer's take on Metro.
Deb Whitman, VP of product marketing for digital imaging, ran through the value proposition that underlies Adobe's integrated Creative Suite of applications brings to creative workflow.
That would make it nearly impossible to break Adobe's hold on customers with just a single product, even one that can be, as Microsoft's Key told me, used alongside many others.
In my analysis, Microsoft doesn't entirely know what it has in Acrylic, and it may or may not end up as an actual product.
User feedback on the Acrylic site seems favorable, but I am not a graphics professional and can't entirely judge.
It would not surprise me if, at the end of the beta, Microsoft just decided to give Acrylic away.
As for Metro, the technology solves real problems with Windows printing.
Microsoft would have to make a real investment to compete with Acrobat, and I am not sure it's worth the bother.
Acrobat isn't a threat to Microsoft as far as I can tell, and the market for a new portable document format can't be huge.
It is, however, possible that Microsoft has some non-obvious use in mind for Metro in future products.
I don't believe this is a coordinated Microsoft attack on Adobe. If it were, I think it would be much better-organized.
Contributing editor David Coursey has spent two decades writing about hardware, software and communications for business customers. He can be reached at david_coursey@ziffdavis.com.
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