Apple Denies Rumors of Selling Off Pro Apps

[mdriftmeyer]

Only an idiot would speculate on Pro Apps being sold off

You have nearly $20 Billion in cash and the leverage to expand your Professional App Catalogue and you suddenly start shopping around the idea of selling off future growth?

Only an idiot would think that would happen.

Sorry NAB, but Apple doesn't need to show up to sell it's products in your market space.

When Apple releases more applications in broader Markets they just might laugh at this stupid rumor.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

I concur. I suspect FCS3 will be seen at NAB2009 along side Phenomenon, or whatever it's called when released.

P.S. Nice first post btw. Welcome!

I'd expect some demonstration at WWDC about upcoming professional products in the works.

 

[MattInOz]

I would have thought if Apple was shopping around in this area for people to develop pro apps it would be more likely on mass staff interview would you like to brought by us not would you like to buy.

If they are shopping around then they are talking to lots of people not just or not even Abode, can't see a buy up there. 3rd Party suppliers plug-in, filters and content would be good targets, freeing current team members for more core work.
Small rival start-ups that can offer new features, perspectives and raw coding talent would also be high on the list. I'd suspect.

 

[deathshrub]

Buried as inaccurate. Too rumor-ish. heh

This is not digg.

 

[inkswamp]

The only way they sell them is if they buy Adobe. And thats been rumored to be in the works for a while.

All Apple has to do is sit back and continue working in secret on their Photoshop killer and wait for the right time to pounce. Adobe's products have definitely gone the bloatware route with the last couple versions and the features have not been there to justify it. In fact, I'd say the unnecessary interface complexity they've introduced has made things a lot worse. Eventually, if Adobe keeps going this route, Photoshop and the creative suite will simply collapse and give others an opening. I'm already at the point where I shudder just a little bit when I have to work in Photoshop because I get that "get out of my @#$%&* way and let me work" reaction to it too much nowadays. It's become a lot like Word and Office. Just too much crap, too much bloat.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

true, true, although the new version of Office for mac and windows seem to fix that problem pretty well.

 

[Applepi]

This is not digg.

qft.

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

It would be completely nuts to sell them off not to mention uncharacteristic of Apple.

 

[Analog Kid]

Tank, you mean? If you look at the likely cost of an Adobe acquisition (at least $30 billion) you can easily see how the markets would view such a move -- even more negatively than they view most large mergers, which always are freighted with questions about how two, already large and dominant companies would merge their goals, products, finances and cultures. This is even before factoring in the immediate questions it would raise about the half or better of Adobe's business which is not dependent on the Mac platform.

I spell that disaster with a capital D.

I've always argued the same way, but think about the number for a second-- what I'm about to work through is nothing like rigorous, but mainly illustrating a concept:

Apple buys Adobe, and half of Adobe's customers leave immediately. Immediate write-off of something like $400m in operating income.

Apple's operating income is about $4.4b, about half of which is from Macs. If killing the Windows versions sell 20% more Macs, Apple would have broken even.

I'm too lazy to find all the exact numbers, but this isn't too fantastical to imagine...

 

[twoodcc]

i'm pleased to see this. i think the pro apps have helped apple out, and have done quite well

 

[BTW]

The only way they sell them is if they buy Adobe. And thats been rumored to be in the works for a while. As someone that uses both Apple and Adobe apps, it would be nice to see a marriage of the two under Apple. But I doubt the government would allow that to happen. One thing I'm certain of, if Apple buys Adobe, we'll finally get some quality 64 bit apps. Not to mention cutting support for the Windows versions. Everyone would have to come to the dark side...and my AAPL stock will soar.

Of course the government would allow Apple to buy Adobe. Microsoft has competing products out and in the works. Silverlight, Expression Studio, and many top-secret Windows Live apps coming out in 2009. This is the year of service packs. Next year is product realignment.

Oracle pointed out the Microsoft threat several times when they bought-out Peoplesoft and other smaller competitors. If it worked for them then why not Apple?

 

[asdavis10]

Tank, you mean? If you look at the likely cost of an Adobe acquisition (at least $30 billion) you can easily see how the markets would view such a move -- even more negatively than they view most large mergers, which always are freighted with questions about how two, already large and dominant companies would merge their goals, products, finances and cultures. This is even before factoring in the immediate questions it would raise about the half or better of Adobe's business which is not dependent on the Mac platform.

I spell that disaster with a capital D.

No, I meant soar. Lets say Apple buys Adobe and (and being the key word) cuts support of all those creative apps for Windows. It will force millions of graphic designers and web developers to buy Macs. Not to mention all those multi-media agencies that fully run Windows (not all creative shops use Macs). That will bring in billions of dollars in sales instantly. Companies will be forced to follow the software that so many of their professionals are trained in. There is no equivalent creative suite in the industry. Despite what people may say about Adobe apps, they are the standard for creative professional. So now think about it. Not only will companies buy Macs, they will also move to OSX server. It is no secret that Apple uses software to drive their hardware sales. And that is exactly what this would do. This would create a serious blow to Windows market-share. And that is how my AAPL will go through the roof.

 

[nuckinfutz]

i wish they would sell off logic to some who CARES!!!! im soooooo sick of the bugs that have lingered and lingered. apple appears to be paying absolutely no attention as well. it just takes 5 seconds to figure this out by visiting their discussion board for logic. i believe their heads are so far stuck up their iphones that they dont have the staff to focus on anything else.... i coming from an emagic background where it was their bread and butter and they CARED, A LOT!

If you went to the discussion boards of any DAW you'd see a lot of complaints. People generally don't go to a discussion board to post that everthing is working correctly. The iPhone and Logic programmers would never meet unless it was a company function. The Logic Team is still in Germany and they report to Gerard Langhelin...the iPhone was created by the OS X team under Bertran Serlet. Logic Pro 8 has bugs..of course but remember the core engine is rewritten so that you have sample accurate editing now in arrange. The UI is much better than previous versions and the price can't be beat for what you get. Is it as fluid as it should be? No..but considering the polish they put on it and the internal changes I think it's absurd to think that anyone else could have done a better job with Logic Pro 8

Apples treatment of Logic is a travesty, I still use 7.2.3 and have no intentions of L8 after trying on my friends system.Its just an Apple gui frame worked over legacy code, it has bugs from back in version 4 FFS

I left Digidesign, because the first thought when Apple bought emagic that the ultimate DAW would be a reality. Instead pitiful support, upgrades that introduce more bugs along with the fixes and arrogance bar none.

If it was legacy code LP8 wouldn't have same accurate editing in the arrange window. Yes there are bugs still present but imagine the work involved to move off the UI abomination that is LP 5/6/7 to something resembling a modern UI. Everything is still there ..the Environment..the plugins and much more yet it's now half the cost. I mean what do you guys want? Logic pro Studio now includes what you paid a grand for but includes Soundtrack Pro and Mainstage at half the price. There ARE people making music with Logic Pro and of course there are people who "should" be making music but spend too much time complaining about a bug or some "missing" feature. You guys should have been happy with the price cut and no more XSKEY.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Apple doesn't need to buy Adobe. That's like buying a 32oz Steak that's comprised of 12oz of meat. Too much fat.

How much would it cost Apple to develop/acquire a CS Suite competitor? Certainly not 30 billion.


Photoshop- Aperture is well on it's way to replacing PS for many people that just want to edit photos. PS is more if an image creation app now than photo editor. Of course I'd love to see Apple acquire Painter from Corel and center their image creation app around it.

Illustratror- Acquire CorelDraw and fix it. CorelDraw was actually on the Mac for a couple of generations and was dropped at ver 11 I believe so some Mac code exists.

Indesign- I think Apple has enough inhouse talent to develop something from scratch.

Acrobat- no need to compete

Flash - no need to compete

Dreamweaver- Apple would be crazy not to develop iWeb Pro

Sure ...it would take 5-8 years to challenge Adobe but it surely wouldn't have a hard cost of 30 freakin billion dollars.

 

[csimmons]

i wish they would sell off logic to some who CARES!!!! im soooooo sick of the bugs that have lingered and lingered. apple appears to be paying absolutely no attention as well. it just takes 5 seconds to figure this out by visiting their discussion board for logic. i believe their heads are so far stuck up their iphones that they dont have the staff to focus on anything else.... i coming from an emagic background where it was their bread and butter and they CARED, A LOT!

The entire Emagic team (minus two guys) is still there. They still care. A lot of Logic whiners simply don't understand how difficult a program like Logic is to totally redo for OSX (Leopard in particular). With a program as deep as Logic, a lot of problems many users experience are, simply put, right in front of their monitors.

There are quite a few Logic discussion boards on the Net, and they are not all representative of what is really going on in the Logic community. People who don't have problems usually don't complain on the Net.

 

[paul.b.davis]

Let's not forget that from Logic comes Logic Express, which, in my opinion is the BEST software of it's kind for the price range. Perfect for folks who don't need Logic Studio, but Garageband just isn't enough.

I am just a songwriter who uses my recording stuff to track demos for my band that later get turned into recordings done by professionals. I have used several different types of recording software (Cubase, Pro Tools, Home Studio(?)) and I can say that Logic Express has helped me get my music recorded quickly and efficiently, while still providing me with enough tools to tinker around with in a creative sense.

Sure, they are Pro Apps, but the "prosumer" market loves the stuff derived from them. I would be interested to see a comparison of sales from the Logic Express demographic, meaning a contrast of similar software (Pro Tools LE, Cubase Lite, etc.). That to me would be a good test of how much of an impact the Pro Apps have made.

NOTE: I only really use audio stuff, so I cannot comment on Aperture, Final Cut and others.

 

[LethalWolfe]

No, I meant soar. Lets say Apple buys Adobe and (and being the key word) cuts support of all those creative apps for Windows. It will force millions of graphic designers and web developers to buy Macs. Not to mention all those multi-media agencies that fully run Windows (not all creative shops use Macs). That will bring in billions of dollars in sales instantly. Companies will be forced to follow the software that so many of their professionals are trained in. There is no equivalent creative suite in the industry. Despite what people may say about Adobe apps, they are the standard for creative professional. So now think about it. Not only will companies buy Macs, they will also move to OSX server. It is no secret that Apple uses software to drive their hardware sales. And that is exactly what this would do. This would create a serious blow to Windows market-share. And that is how my AAPL will go through the roof.

There are quite a few optimistic assumptions in that post. Let us say that Apple does buy Adobe and does immediately kill support for Windows and does not offer any sort of discount/incentive to get Windows users to switch. Not only has Apple royally pissed off a ton of potential users, but they've also opened the door wide open for Windows based competition. EOLing the Windows version won't "bring in billions of dollars in sales instantly" cause the setups those companies already have invested heavily in still work. And companies will be very loathe to give Apple money when it was Apple that screwed them in the first place. Relatively few places run the latest and greatest for stability and monetary reasons. OS 9, Media Composer 11, and Shake are all examples of software that has been EOL'd for *years* yet are still common to see in use.


Lethal

 

[fluidedge]

This whole thing does raise the question of what the hell apple are doing with so much cash in the bank - it can only be for an upcoming major acquisition?

What is Adobe worth? It must be more than $19bn?

Yahoo is worth about $45bn judging from Microsoft's attempt.

What companies that apple would be interested in are worth about $20bn?

Is there any benefit to buying comapines like SanDisk for their flash memory/solid state drives?

Or what about something like a record company to secure the whole back catalogue and all the profits from itunes. What about buying a movie studio?

 

[fluidedge]

or maybe they're anticipating a market downturn globally in computer/tech sales and want the security of being able to ride it out with that much cash in the bank

 

[bobbleheadbob]

i'm pleased to see this. i think the pro apps have helped apple out, and have done quite well

I agree. I'm glad this is rumor only and not true. I really like the integration between , the OS and all of the apps (I have FCS, Logic, and Aperture).

 

[superleccy]

Illustratror- Acquire CorelDraw and fix it. CorelDraw was actually on the Mac for a couple of generations and was dropped at ver 11 I believe so some Mac code exists.

YES PLEASE! Although, I should think what code exists would be pretty naff. CorelDraw 11 for Mac looked looked like it was badly ported from OS9 or earlier. Not sure how much they could re-use (or how much the customers would WANT them to re-use).

SL

 

[nickane]

Putting this on page 1 has really frightened everyone it seems, cos most ppl, like me, hadn't heard this rumour (was it ever on macrumors?), and as someone pointed out already, whilst Apple rarely issues denials, they don't have a good track record of sticking to them either (I can't remember any examples, but Jobsy has always been a complete c*£$ who pulls **** like this to keep us all guessing).

I know nothing of logic but Apple certainly seems to be neglecting Shake/Phenomenon. It all sounded good on paper 2 years ago, but then Ron Brinkmann (the core guy from nReal who moved over to apple when they bought shake around the time they bought out eMagic) left to work on Nuke, made the GUI more like Shake and it seems that a lot of companies are switching. If apple doesn't at least make a demo of phenomenon by the end of the year, they'll have lost a huge chunk of the post production market. That said, with more FCP integration, the final product is likely to be more geared towards prosumers/television (and probably won't run on linux, which all the big post production companies use it on).

I don't see Apple buying adobe. Monopolies and mergers commission (or US equivalent) would never allow it. But selling off their pro apps seems plausible, if only for how increasingly neglected we've been lately. That would be really annoying tho, partly cos of the integration, but principally because if it wasn't for FCP, I might never have gotten into this Apple fandom in the first place.

 

[paul.b.davis]

There are quite a few optimistic assumptions in that post. Let us say that Apple does buy Adobe and does immediately kill support for Windows and does not offer any sort of discount/incentive to get Windows users to switch. Not only has Apple royally pissed off a ton of potential users, but they've also opened the door wide open for Windows based competition. EOLing the Windows version won't "bring in billions of dollars in sales instantly" cause the setups those companies already have invested heavily in still work. And companies will be very loathe to give Apple money when it was Apple that screwed them in the first place. Relatively few places run the latest and greatest for stability and monetary reasons. OS 9, Media Composer 11, and Shake are all examples of software that has been EOL'd for *years* yet are still common to see in use.


Lethal

Exactly, take an example the other way. If MS bought Final Cut or Logic (or whatever pro app you use) and dropped all Mac support for it. Would you instantly go out and buy a Windows box? I sure wouldn't. I would keep on using Logic on my Mac until it was no longer a viable option

 

[nuckinfutz]

Putting this on page 1 has really frightened everyone it seems, cos most ppl, like me, hadn't heard this rumour (was it ever on macrumors?), and as someone pointed out already, whilst Apple rarely issues denials, they don't have a good track record of sticking to them either (I can't remember any examples, but Jobsy has always been a complete c*£$ who pulls **** like this to keep us all guessing).

I know nothing of logic but Apple certainly seems to be neglecting Shake/Phenomenon. It all sounded good on paper 2 years ago, but then Ron Brinkmann (the core guy from nReal who moved over to apple when they bought shake around the time they bought out eMagic) left to work on Nuke, made the GUI more like Shake and it seems that a lot of companies are switching. If apple doesn't at least make a demo of phenomenon by the end of the year, they'll have lost a huge chunk of the post production market. That said, with more FCP integration, the final product is likely to be more geared towards prosumers/television (and probably won't run on linux, which all the big post production companies use it on).

We'll see. I tend to agree with you ..Apple certainly isn't moving forward as aggresively as they should. Here's Brinkmann's comment about the possibility of Phenomenon coming.

I really can’t say much about where Apple may or may not be going with future products. Although the fact that I decided it was time to move on might be a reasonable clue as to my confidence level that any alleged ‘next generation’ tool will be focused on the market (high end vfx and animation) that I’m interested in… And why I’m now working with The Foundry on Nuke…

He doesn't not appear to be happy at all with Apple right now. Can't say I blame him. If i'm a world class developer I'm going to feel tied down unless I can push the envelope.

 

[Intarweb]

I wish they would sell it off. Then a competent company can come in and fix Compressor 3 that hasn't worked for 1000's of people since last June.