Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Adobe's Linux Problem

The astonishing finding (widely reported) that Adobe Photoshop is on the list of top-ten most wanted Linux applications tells me a couple of things.

It pretty clearly says that GIMP needs to suck a lot less.

Secondly, it tells me Adobe Systems doesn't really care about the Linux market (much less the community).

Adobe's Pam Deziel admits that the shrinkwrap giant has known for some time (well before the Novell survey) about the pent-up demand for a Linux version of Photoshop, based on its own research.

So in other words, Adobe has known for some time that it could make money tomorrow by offering a commercial version of Photoshop on Linux. It chooses to leave this money on the table (shareholders be damned). Not a big enough market, says Adobe.

How, then, does Adobe explain the fact that it currently offers a Solaris version of FrameMaker 7.2? FrameMaker has nowhere near as many users as Photoshop, and Solaris is nowhere near as popular as Linux.

Adobe's story is nowhere near making sense.