Musings from the High Castle

So, John Dvorak reckons that if Adobe were to port it's Creative Suite across to Linux it would be a shot across MSFT's bow and cause users to switch to Linux.

What the hell is he smoking, cos I want some. What absolute crap - articles like this aren't well thought out and are generally great for creating some form of buzz around Dvorak.

Idiot 1: Dude, did you see, Dvorak reckon's Microsoft can be sunk.

Idiot 2 : Rightous ma, now hand me the bong...

Let's rewind the clock. Adobe used to only create it's software for the Apple platform, as this was the platform of choice for designer (general comment on high level view of the situation as I wasn't really around). But then something changed and they started to develop for Microsoft - most probably as more and more companies were rolling out PC's across their workforce and these were invariably we're on the Windows platform. So, designer and creatives were slowly being made to move from Apple and PC. You'd have thought this would cause an uproar, but generally most of my creative friends don't mind using a PC. Some use a mac, but are happy to create using either platform.

So the question is, would a creative move towards using Linux as a platform for their day to day work AND to create using Adobe's newly ported wares. I don't think so, as they'd have to get used to using the entire platform - new way to deal with email, word docs, etc, and I don't think that the mainstream are ready for that. Sure, you'll have some l33t creatives who'll want for this port and will jump on that bandwagon, but these early adopters will be a small segment of the general population

Now, if Adobe could work with Ubuntu and A N Other set of corporations to have solutions in place to replace Office, networking, etc for the Ubuntu platform and make it even easier to use and roll it out, then they're on to something. But in the mid to long term, they haven't got a chance in penetrating Microsoft segment. There are companies like Pixar that need high-end computing to create digital effects use Linux as their base os, but again this is a niche market and these companies use bespoke software (I think) to create the visuals, something that Adobe can't do as yet.

Suggesting that Adobe Create an near-dedicated machine for creatives and designers alike to use and then suggest that this strategy would keep Microsoft of it's tail: Dvorak is smoking something else