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Home > Archive > Macromedia Flash Server > May 2005 > OT: Merger article
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OT: Merger article
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| Bill Sanders 2005-05-06, 5:45 pm |
| Simon,
The Economist is one of my two favorite magazines (the other being
the New Yorker)--primarily because both are so well written. Anthony
Lane's film reviews are so caustically funny and (in their own way)
accurate in a Lane-ian world that I'm surprised that I ever go to the
movies. From that experience, I learned that a well-written article
is more a matter of a keen wit and mastery of the King's English than
dull accuracy. The Economist article failed to note that the co-
founders of Adobe were (and still are) making a bundle from licensing
PostScript. Years ago HP made a run at them with their own font
description language that went nowhere. People (printer manufacturers
in particular) howled about the injustice of Adobe "jacking up the
price of printers" because of the Hackers-cum-Businessmen running
Adobe. They may not have been hucksters, but they did have more
business acumen than they were given credit for in the Economist
excerpt. As for PageMaker (purchased from Aldus), Quark was simply a
better product and targeted professionals from the old hot-lead
mindset rather than PageMaker that was trying to make-everyone-a-
publisher. That happens--as it did with LiveMotion.
As for Steve Jobs being some kind of MasterMind--I'll give the devil
his due--he bought into Pixar at the right time, and he's responsible
for the Mac (for which he provided impossible screw fittings so that
no one would "fiddle with them" --as was done easily with the Apple
II.), and the iMac. However, he's also responsible for the Apple ///
which was simply a larger Apple II with an 8-bit processor and data
bus--a glorified 6502. He's also responsible for a lot of other screw-
ups and angst at Apple. (I did contract work for Apple at the time of
Mr. Job's first incarnation, and the working environment there was
pure hell.)
So while the stereotypes of "jerks-in-suits" have some truth, and we
all like to divide the world into the creative (which we side with)
and the crass business side, we still get stereotypes and a muffling
of a more balanced, duller, albeit more accurate view of how things
get done at software companies. No matter what we think, it's the
jerks-in-suits that provide a lot of us with the business we need for
creative work.
(I don't mean to sound so school marmish.....but there it is.)
Cheers,
Bill
On May 6, 2005, at 1:51 PM, Simon Lord wrote:
> Amusing article for anyone interested on one more opinion piece
> about the merger:
>
> http://daringfireball.net/
>
> ... few good belly laughs for the weekend in it too.
>
> Sincerely,
> Simon
>
>
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| Brian Lesser 2005-05-06, 8:45 pm |
| FWIW, I thought the original Economist article was more interesting:
http://www.economist.com/business/d...tory_id=3860760
I think the last paragraph provides more of a clue to what might be
going on at Adobe than a lot of the noise being published about the
acquisition.
Regarding sales and marketing people, I worked for over five years for
Xerox Research (not PARC, I was in XRCC in Canada) and saw Xerox fail
spectacularly to sell software to business. Xerox had it all including
Object Oriented programming (Mesa and Smalltalk) a page description
language (Interpress), networked laser printers, and Xerox Network
Services (XNS) before anyone else. They had bean bag chairs and the
best and brightest. To this day I don't think many people realise how
far ahead things like ViewPoint were. From Xerox's shareholders point of
view it all came to nothing - or worse. If you want to sell something
you have to understand something about how your technology might be cost
effectively used and how to sell it. Xerox didn't have a clue about how
to sell computers, networks, and digital printing into the enterprise in
the 80s. I don't know much about Chizen, but I know he wasn't snatched
out of some cola company. I'm not sure Xerox understood about platforms
and the economy that can develop around them either. I hope Adobe does.
Cheers,
-Brian
Bill Sanders wrote:
> Simon,
>
> The Economist is one of my two favorite magazines (the other being
> the New Yorker)--primarily because both are so well written. Anthony
> Lane's film reviews are so caustically funny and (in their own way)
> accurate in a Lane-ian world that I'm surprised that I ever go to the
> movies. From that experience, I learned that a well-written article
> is more a matter of a keen wit and mastery of the King's English than
> dull accuracy. The Economist article failed to note that the co-
> founders of Adobe were (and still are) making a bundle from licensing
> PostScript. Years ago HP made a run at them with their own font
> description language that went nowhere. People (printer manufacturers
> in particular) howled about the injustice of Adobe "jacking up the
> price of printers" because of the Hackers-cum-Businessmen running
> Adobe. They may not have been hucksters, but they did have more
> business acumen than they were given credit for in the Economist
> excerpt. As for PageMaker (purchased from Aldus), Quark was simply a
> better product and targeted professionals from the old hot-lead
> mindset rather than PageMaker that was trying to make-everyone-a-
> publisher. That happens--as it did with LiveMotion.
>
> As for Steve Jobs being some kind of MasterMind--I'll give the devil
> his due--he bought into Pixar at the right time, and he's responsible
> for the Mac (for which he provided impossible screw fittings so that
> no one would "fiddle with them" --as was done easily with the Apple
> II.), and the iMac. However, he's also responsible for the Apple ///
> which was simply a larger Apple II with an 8-bit processor and data
> bus--a glorified 6502. He's also responsible for a lot of other screw-
> ups and angst at Apple. (I did contract work for Apple at the time of
> Mr. Job's first incarnation, and the working environment there was
> pure hell.)
>
> So while the stereotypes of "jerks-in-suits" have some truth, and we
> all like to divide the world into the creative (which we side with)
> and the crass business side, we still get stereotypes and a muffling
> of a more balanced, duller, albeit more accurate view of how things
> get done at software companies. No matter what we think, it's the
> jerks-in-suits that provide a lot of us with the business we need for
> creative work.
>
> (I don't mean to sound so school marmish.....but there it is.)
>
> Cheers,
> Bill
>
> On May 6, 2005, at 1:51 PM, Simon Lord wrote:
>
>
>
> =-----------------------------------------------------------
> Supported by Fig Leaf Software - http://www.figleaf.com
> =-----------------------------------------------------------
>
> To change your subscription options or search the archive:
> http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcomm
=-----------------------------------------------------------
Supported by Fig Leaf Software - http://www.figleaf.com
=-----------------------------------------------------------
To change your subscription options or search the archive:
http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcomm
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