Posts Tagged ‘adobe’

Nitobi acquired by Adobe; PhoneGap to be ASF

I tweeted on October 1 about how I thought PhoneGap Build was cool. Its an immensely cool service which I’ve wanted to see MoSync do.

On October 2 I just read that PhoneGap was being submitted to the Apache Software Foundation (article, mailing list post). I absolutely loved the commitment, their current license was already good, and I was very excited for Nitobi.

Just yesterday on October 3, Nitobi announced that they entered into an acquisition agreement with Adobe. PhoneGap Build will be closed-source, commercial, and cost money. DreamWeaver CS 5.5 has PhoneGap. However PhoneGap itself will remain open, and will become Apache Callback.

Kudos to Nitobi. Kudos to Adobe. You’re making the right decision. Just don’t screw it up.

Nitobi is pursuing a contribution of the PhoneGap code to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to ensure open stewardship of the project over the long term. As part of that process it will be renamed to a new Apache-branded name Callback. Adobe fully supports this contribution and will continue to host the PhoneGap community site with full participation from its contributors, as well as the PhoneGap Build service. — on why PhoneGap code is being donated to the ASF

Adobe needs cheaper local pricing

I should make it clear, that I am against software piracy, and do not support it in any way, shape or form. However, I want to provide some context to my tweet earlier:

RM8,599 for Adobe Creative Suite 4 bundle, at machines. I’m sorry Adobe. I’ll limp with open source alternatives, and others will pirate you

I have an inkling to play with, and use, Photoshop CS4, as well as Illustrator. So I started calling around and finding out a little more about it. Only to be shocked that the entire “bundle” of Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium would cost me a meagre RM8,599 (then again, it might be the Master Collection – I was just told it was a bundle). I called elsewhere, to find that the Standard Edition is RM5,500, but I can get a discount for a mere RM5,300!

I prodded around the Adobe website further, to find that they had some offers, like bona fide students can for a mere RM399, get Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium (normally US$2,313). So that’s a good deal, if I were in an educational institution.

However, Adobe doesn’t seem to understand Asian economics (something, even Microsoft is getting with lower priced software, including for their flagship Office products). I can go to my friendly neighbourhood software retailer, and for a mere RM10, pick up RM5,300 worth of value. Heck, I won’t be surprised if I can pull in RM8,599 worth of value, even.

On Twitter, I was advised that its cheaper to buy an older version, then upgrade from there. I cannot imagine many a Malaysian wanting to pay this much for software.

Adobe is a member of the Business Software Alliance. Doesn’t the organisation dole out advice to members, to keep software prices in check?

How many legit users of Adobe Creative Suite are there in Malaysia? Please stand up. Remember, you could get a MacBook, a MacBook Air, a MacBook Pro, or even an iMac for less than the entire bundle.

Me? I’ll just happily limp on with using The GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, and the like. For others that don’t grok open source software? They’ll shell out RM10 (or fire up their BitTorrent client).

Long live proprietary software license fees, and ridiculous prices that go with it.
(and I hope that the open source alternatives eventually force Adobe to rethink their business model)

Acrobat.com Office, Buzzword Review

Finding out that Adobe is the latest to jump on the online office bandwagon, I decided I need to try their service out. Working together, anywhere, is their tag line.

First impressions? They provide a few fonts that look nice. There is document sharing built-in. You can also add comments on parts of documents – and this is a killer feature with the built-in sharing, I love how the way comments are displayed (they’re in your face).

Buzzword, with comments
Comments being displayed in a Buzzword document (click for larger image)

What am I disappointed with? File formats. Not supporting ODF out of the box, is really silly. Exporting to PDF is nice, RTF is standard, .txt (so you lose the fonts), a zipped up HTML document, and Word (.doc), Word 2003 XML (.xml), and Word 2007 (.docx), only? Open standards, FAIL!

Adobe Buzzword, file formats
Buzzword, not supporting a wide variety of common file format (click for larger image)

I’d try out the rest of the services, but I’m sent to Acrobat Health, as it seems like they’re just a little overloaded now…


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