Adobe Competes Against Their Own
In reading Grant Skinner’s recent post on Adobe and Developer relations I recalled some past experiences of my own. First, for context, one of Adobe’s most recent lab-additions named Squiggly, the AS3 spell checker, is viewed as direct competition to a commercial project already established in the community. The discussion of whether Adobe should have bought out the project or at least consulted with the group is two-sided as you’ll read in Skinner’s comments. And, as Grant points out, this is certainly nothing new from the software giant.
My Experience
Two years ago around this same time I attended Adobe’s big MAX Conference. The keynotes were full of excitement and anticipation. Adobe announced their work on adding the H.264 codec, or MPEG4, into the Flash Player. High Def for streaming video looked like great opportunities added to our future, and it has been. Then Adobe announced their direct partnership with MTV to provide solutions using this technology.
I thought, “if Adobe is bidding on client projects and I’m bidding on client projects, how can I compete?” Especially considering they’re the gatekeepers of the closed-source Flash Player and its future features. So even though it’s not unexpected I decided, at least for that conference, I wasn’t going to be happy about it.
Later on in Ty Lettau’s session on the new Adobe XD website I learned that the XD Team isn’t just an R&D arm discovering new and improved software interfaces – they’re working professionals taking on projects for companies like MTV and Nike. From the XD website:
We’re a hundred-plus architects, academics, sculptors, DJs, writers, designers, and engineers. We come from all over the world; our expertise ranges from interaction and visual design to research, information architecture, and programming.
In the session I brought up the question of Adobe’s stance on competing with their primary customer (designers and developers). Ty may have handled the question well for most in attendance, but in my indignant state it was just fuel. Something like there are only so many tools that Adobe can build, and because there is money to be had in client work they have dabbled and will likely move that direction in the future. And we (as designers and developers) only benefit from the improvements they make to the platform to meet their needs. Look at ActionScript 3, which was largely a response to the limitations of old school Flex.
As a funny side, after the session two Adobe reps in suits approached me and asked about the company I worked for, saying there was more work then Adobe could handle and that we should benefit by becoming a partner. Bonus for the disgruntled loud mouth! But at the same time should the work only go to Adobe’s favored partners?
Others
I hung out in both the keynote and that session with Jake Hilton, Flash Media Server guru and patient listener. He also suffered at the hands of Adobe with a product named Huddle. Huddle and several other web meeting technologies lost footing when Adobe released Breeze (Adobe Connect) which took advantage of some new proprietary screen capture technology within context of the Flash Player. This of course gave Adobe all the advantage they needed to bury any competition.
So What?
In one vein it would be great if Adobe stuck to tooling and allowed their customers (us) to secure the client work. But then would we see the advancements we hope will come with future versions of their platform? Maybe now, with the pressure of competition from Microsoft, they’ll have to focus on their primary market. Either way, it makes me squirm to watch designers and developers get so excited over a feature spawned by some client project, some job they’ll never have a real chance to bid on.
Hey, I remember you.
I was one of the “suits” you refer to. (although, I think I was actually wearing jeans a polo shirt that day, as you’ll never find me in a suit).
I’m sorry our answers were unsatisfactory for you, but you seem to have misinterpreted what both Ty and we said to you. I don’t remember Ty saying anything about “money to be had”… in fact, money is the last reason that Adobe gets involved in an engagement.
I believe what we said was that Adobe has a small team (the hundred plus on the XD team refers to those working on internal products… the Customer Engagements team is just a small handful) of XD and consulting designers and developers that will work on *strategic* engagements where we believe the customer’s success is vital to the success of the Flash and LiveCycle platform, and where a partner would not have the resources available to ensure success. Most everything else we pass off to partners.
Really, it may be hard to believe, but we’re not nearly as concerned about money off engagements as we are about ensuring key, strategic partners are successful in their implementations. And, if it’s only money to be had but no strategic reason to engage, we always pass off to a partner.
So the point that my colleague was trying to make by encouraging you to be a partner was that our mission in consulting is:
1) To Ensure Success of Key Customers (whether that be educating the customers’ designers and developers, lining them up with the best partners, or taking lead on projects where appropriate) and
2) To Support the Adobe Partner Community by providing them with strategic partnerships and opportunities.
I’m sorry you gained the impression that Adobe customer engagements had anything to do with making money, or trying to steal customers, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Peter,
Thank you for your response and clarification. I can see where you’re coming from, though it wasn’t made clear at the time. In fact after the session Ty made some comment about Adobe selling a product for $5 hundred while developers go on to make thousands using it; that it’s only logical for Adobe to move in this direction. It was opinion and speculation, not official policy.
I understand that the money from these few engagements is probably not a big deal considering Adobe’s size. However, as pure as intentions are (strategic or otherwise), it is still harmful to Adobe customers in varying degrees when this happens. Less dramatic is that some company has one less opportunity to establish a relationship with MTV. And then sometimes there are businesses or products like Huddle that may go under. Occasionally a win-win is possible, such as when a product like Buzzword can just be bought out. In the end it’s all business, sometimes Adobe has to make hard decisions, and everyone can’t always win. But it would be good to remember that it never hurts to address these strategies or previous works when their time comes.
Sorry about the suit comment, you must make a good impression in a polo shirt.
In all fairness you and Ty were great to talk to, and some good relations came out of our conversations. I’m just pointing out that not all of Adobe’s strategic decisions are in favor of their primary customer, the designer/developer.
A couple more recent examples of Adobe throwing their weight around: Shibuya vs Sharify and the 3rd party Octoshape Grid plugin to the Flash Player.
I sincerely love Adobe’s tech teams, they do great work and look out for the community they serve. Adobe business however is about strategy and position, irregardless of the hurt they do in their own community.
FlashDen changes their name
It’s been my experience that the people on the business side of Adobe are just like most people working in the business department of any other company – they would sell their soul, eat their own children and knife their grandmother in the back if it would give them any advantage be it financial or otherwise. One time I found a thread for a show stopper bug in adobe AIR 1.1 for Flash CS3 where the support team was claiming over and over that they did not know what the bug was or how to fix it. I then found out they really did know, and the bug was even fixed… but then only wrapped up in the AIR 1.5 release which was.. as you know.. rolled out ONLY for Flash CS4. After tearing them a new one and telling everyone on the forum how to update Flash CS3 to build against AIR 1.5.XX.. low and behold a few months later an official guide comes up repeating verbatum the steps I said when I blew the whistle. Now.. as a developer at my company.. all I will say is that our business department gets the last word in what we tell our customers. So.. I blame them.
Also, just take a look around the flash community. Any time that anyone gets a good business OP going or starts to get recognized, Adobe is all over them just looking for a cause to squash them. Flashden is a perfect example. WHY.. after 3 years ( I think ) would you suddenly attack them for their domain name? There is only one reason – these people were making good money creating components customizable and independent of an Adobe IDE. So basically, the big baby was crying because other people were generating a renewable source of income from their products and they werent, so like any big baby bully they threw a fit and tried to wedgie the object of their envy. There are other devs.. people that started getting a good following and did simple stuff like put AIR in their domain etc and Adobe was quick to bring the hammer down. Honestly… either we need to take Tamarin and develop a community version of flash player and flash tools or I think it might be time to check out other options all together. I especially love that I bought CS4 Master collection and I can count on 1 hand (maybe 2 max) how many useful features I gained from CS3 Master. I think Adobe is losing their edge and may even feel like they’re losing control of their own product, so they’re being babies.
(please not I have only read the main article not the comments so forgive if i missed anything)
I also run a development and design house, and obviously care about who is winning what contract. But, I strongly believe Adobe SHOULD be pitching for them along with everyone else.
I care about Adobe’s tools. Adobe’s tools will only be heading in truly useful directions if they understand their clients and their clients clients needs.
Adobe is first and only a business they’re not a fairy ‘dev tool’ godmothers. we are all running businesses here aren’t we, I wouldn’t think twice about grabbing a contract if offered it that maybe some team at Adobe would love to work on, of course I wouldn’t, who would. And neither should Adobe, I dont want some crazy positive discrimination because I don’t have a 100 strong team and I dont make my own tooling. There is space in this market for companies of every size. I for one and the company as a whole have done very nicely thank you very much out of using Adobe products and macromedia as was. thanks god for them I say.
I also get very twitchy when people start to talk about large companies ‘hurting the little man’ as if they have some kind of moral duty not to wet their beak, I dont know it always kinds of ending up sounding a little sour somehow.
At the end of the day Adobe is a large successful corporate money making machine, and long may they remain so. While they continue to make heaps of cash they’ll also continue to make wicked software.
we could, after all, all get together in some happy open-source way and start writing our own free version of everything they do, but really, why bother. Being a successful corporation seems tantamount to evil the way i hear some people talk.
If people think they are losing out because Adobe also has an in house UX team and are getting contracts they ‘should’ have won then I say maybe those people should start to ask themselves how they can compete, and not start shout ‘unfair’
please note, this was not aimed at you, just my comments on the growing ‘bash a business’ attitude that seems so rife in the dev world.
just always remember the richest, most successful people in IT these days all started out just the same way as Adobe did, just a couple of guys with some great game changing ideas. Todays crazy punk kid with a head full of new visions and the drive to follow them through is just tomorrows corporate giant who’ll also be questioned for having too much power.
oh and 1 last thing while i have this space to talk. regarding all the “man i have CS4 and it’s no better than CS3, oh man they ripped me off’ Please stop it! who made you buy the upgrade. if you dont want it, if you think its not different or upgraded enough, then dont spend your money.
thanks for giving me the space on your blog to say these things, nice one mate.
glenn williams
a little man quite happy to swim with the big boys
tinylion development and design.
25 years writing bespoke software and still enjoying every minute.
Nice! Thank you for sharing an opposing view, some of these comments were getting a little harsh.
I appreciate Adobe’s technologies and their successes, and I feel bad about having this post on top of my blog so long. I still feel they could handle some of their dealings with the development community more tactfully.
My blog space is your blog space, thank you for the contribution.