Microsoft Moves in on the Graphics Market 237
Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft has quietly been building up graphics-related R&D, reports Computerworld, noting that Microsoft employees will be presenting one out of every eight papers at SIGGRAPH 2007. And it's not a fluke — other recent Microsoft graphics-related developments include Photosynth, which has been discussed on Slashdot several times, as well as the Silverlight/Expression Studio graphics suite, which will compete with Adobe's Flash/Illustrator/Lightroom/Dreamweaver offerings. At SIGGRAPH, Microsoft will supposedly have demos of some new software including image deblurring tools and Soft Scissors, which 'solves the vexing problem of how to cut and paste an image from one background to another if the image's edges — hair blowing in the wind, blades of grass — are very complex.' Microsoft's competitors aren't sitting down. Adobe's CEO, calling Microsoft a '$50 billion monopolist,' has questioned whether Silverlight will be compatible with non-Windows operating systems, and Google has also been building up its own graphics-related software products, such as the 3D modeling tool SketchUp, and Google Earth."
Soft Scissors Research Paper & Movie (Score:5, Informative)
http://vis.berkeley.edu/papers/softscissors/ [berkeley.edu]
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (Score:5, Informative)
MS also has put a lot of money in research in the area of Graphics, from photo recognition to camera input device concepts, etc.
There is also the entire XBox division which has now spent years understanding graphics, rendering, and has even been instrumental in shaping the design of GPUs in NVidia and ATI cards.
XBox technology is also at the heart of the new Vista graphics subsystem. Adding features that make up DX10 and WDDM, all the way from unified Shaders to GPU RAM virtualization to OS level GPU pre-emption and physics/math support on GPUs through a standard API.
Dreamweaver vs. Expression (Score:3, Informative)
And starting Dreamweaver revealed a program (unlike the CS3 suite) that looked suspiciously (almost exactly like) Dreamweaver 8. It had a new tab for Adobe's Ajax framework and it might have some new support for cold fusion which I don't need.
It can no longer be said that Dreamweaver is kick-ass, open platform, in a lightweight package. It may even be bigger than Expression!!!!!! And MS has been learning from Dreamweaver. Expression only targets
Re:Microsoft might be a monopolist... (Score:3, Informative)
Before Microsoft bought iView it was a much better photo management app than Lightroom. The only thing better about Adobe's product was its UI and integration with Photoshop. I don't know what changes MS has made but if they haven't broken its ability to quickly handle large libraries they might be able to get some traction there.
Why mention 4-month old Adobe Silverlight quotes? (Score:5, Informative)
That Adobe "monopolist" quote is 4 months old. Did that quote really need to be dragged out again for this story?
(BTW, Adobe has some nerve calling someone else a "monopolist" when Adobe tried to collude with MS in price fixing to protect its own Office to PDF export monopoly (Adobe proposed that MS could include PDF export functionality in Office 2k7 if MS up'ed the price so as not to undercut Adobe's Office PDF-export tools.))
And Silverlight is already working on Macs, so the question of Silverlight being "compatilble with non-Windows operating systems" is more 4-month old FUD.
The submitter should've just gone with the story at hand, not dig up a 4-month old story about Adobe's fears of competing with Silverlight.
Re:Questions Linux Support? (Score:4, Informative)
Come on. You can't seriously believe Silverlight will continue to be cross-platform, after Microsoft has a large enough installed base.
Re:THis could be good news! (Score:2, Informative)
Pretty strange theory, Dros (Score:2, Informative)
What we have today is, at best, mercantilism. The biggest thing you ignore in your assertion are "barriers to entry", which as any silicon valley executive can tell you are impenetrable when Microsoft is in the market. A startup's best chance for profit in a Microsoft market is for MS to buy them out. This happened lots in the 80's ad 90's, with most of those companies' products and innovations heading straight for the MS dustbin. So, your assertion about others filling the void to keep MS on their toes is wishful thinking. I'm not defending the current occupants of the market: their business models are antiquated and inefficient.
A cash cow by whose standards?
going by market capitalization (a flawed metric, but something.) Adobe who are the market leader in this space are at $23,978.8 Million. Microsoft are at $271,139.2 Million. That's over an order of magnitude in business size. The graphics market at a discount (in order to kill Adobe) from Adobe's pricing is quite small in relative terms. Add to that the trend towards freeish software led by Google and you have a shrinking market in dollars, even if you have a larger user base. It's like the browser wars. It doesn't really matter who wins, because everyone loses economically. Remember Netscape Communications Corp?
By the way, MS never has to sell people on the next version. They just cease support for the version before last and corporate customers adopt the last version. Wash, rinse, repeat. See other discussions regarding their other product lines most notably windows, office, and Visual Studio.
From The Wealth of Nations:
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." (Book 1, Chapter 10).
http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/index.php/smith/mo
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism [wikipedia.org] :
Mercantilist domestic policy was more fragmented than its trade policy. While Adam Smith portrayed mercantilism as supportive of strict controls over the economy, many mercantilists disagreed. The early modern era was one of letters patent and government-imposed monopolies; some mercantilists supported these, but others acknowledged the corruption and inefficiency of such systems. Many mercantilists also realized the inevitable result of quotas and price ceilings were black markets. One notion mercantilists widely agreed upon was the need for economic oppression of the working population; laborers and farmers were to live at the "margins of subsistence". The goal was to maximize production, with no concern for consumption. Extra money, free time, or education for the "lower classes" was seen to inevitably lead to vice and laziness, and would result in harm to the economy.[7]
Re:Adobe barks about MS Monopoly? WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
feel free to flame me to death now.
Frontpage? Try Microsoft Expression (Score:1, Informative)