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Technology Stocks : Adobe (adbe) opinions -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: P.M.Freedman who wrote (2654)	6/2/1999 12:11:00 PM
From: Mark Palmberg	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3111

"Microsoft Corporation has stated its intention to increase its presence in the digital imaging/graphics market by mid-1999; the Company believes that, due to Microsoft's market dominance, any new Microsoft digital imaging products will be highly competitive with the Company's products. If competing new products achieve widespread acceptance, it would have a significant adverse impact on the Company's operating results." Obviously I missed that; thanks for posting it, P.M. Two things strike me as being very, very improbable: 1. MSFT comes out of nowhere with a product that comes anywhere near any of Adobe's products in terms of quality. It's already mid-1999, where is MSFT's Quark killer? What does it have that could possibly hope to compete, ever, with InDesign? 2. Mass exodus from installed base. Graphics pros aren't like programmers. Programmers may have to learn a new language every now and then to stay current in their jobs (or they may not), but these more creative types either have it or they don't; new software -- should they decide to learn it and then use it -- isn't going to make them any more proficient at their jobs if they can't draw a straight line to begin with. Maybe I'm way off here. If there are some graphics pros lurking here, I'd love to hear how eager you and your shops are to change over to these as-yet-unannounced Microsoft products. My God, can you imagine what a ridiculously bloated piece of crap a Microsoft graphics program would be?! Adobe and Quark's programs are big enough, and they know what they're doing. I can see Microsoft coming out with some little app that rotates images and maybe applies a simple blur or something, but I don't see any way they could make a serious assault on the professional graphics market. Why would they even try? It seems to me this quote from the annual report is more an effort to potentially appease Darth Gates than to recognize a serious player in the graphics space. Mark