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Adobe Creative Suite 3 due in Q2 2007

updated 01:20 pm EST, Fri March 24, 2006

Adobe CS3 due in Q2 2007

Adobe today said that users can expect the release of Adobe Creative Suite 3 -- the first Intel-native version of the professional graphics suite -- in the second quarter of 2007. Minimizing the impact of the delay and defending its decision, Adobe's CEO Bruce Chizen earlier this week said that customers were looking for new features and that Apple's large customers would be slow to migrate to Intel-based Macs -- likening the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. Chizen today told Forbes.com that the company expects to release the next major version of the suite next year, after it releases its flagship Acrobat software in December. "Creative Suite 3 will be introduced in the second quarter of 2007. Acrobat will take advantage of the Macromedia assets. And you'll see a lot of activity in the CS3 launch." Earlier this year, the company noted that the release could be up to one year away.

Chizen also said that there would be a lot of integration between Macromedia's and Adobe's products and that the value of the two companies will be clear following the launch of CS3. Earlier this year, the company said that it would not deliver Universal Binary versions of its applications until the major release of each application, although it did release an Intel native version of Lightroom, a beta version of its professional application for photographers that competes with Apple's recently released Aperture.

Xcode not enough for Photoshop
An Adobe engineer recently blogged about the prospect of updating Photoshop CS2 to offer native support on Intel Macs, but said that Apple's Xcode development software is not yet able to handle large applications sufficiently.

"Now, Apple is doing an amazing job at catching up rapidly, but the truth is we don't yet have a shipping XCode in hand that handles a large application well."

The engineer added that because Adobe is so far along on its CS3 release, it wouldn't make sense to spend time porting over the old code which would require both development software that can handle a large application -- which Apple has yet to provide -- and a major reworking of the code that handles the "heavy lifting," which previously relied on plugins to optimize performance for PowerPC-based Macs.

 
Previous Comments

so...

03/24, 01:25pm reply

'Up to one year' actually means 'over one year'. Poor form all round Adobe.

siMac

Mac Elite

Joined: Aug 2004

0

maybe...

03/24, 01:49pm reply

Apple should do to Adobe what it did to Avid when they slammed Avid between the eyes with Final Cut Pro. As a quick reminder, Avid took a large investment from M$ and soon were recommending to it's customers that they migrate to NT. Apple responded by buying the nascent FCP from Macromedia and releasing it as an Avid competitor (and Adobe Premier killer).

It would take a bit of work, but Adobe should remember that it's well within Apple's capability to turn Aperture into a full-blown compositing program just using the tech it already owns with Shake and FCP.

Like Avid, Adobe grew up with Apple and has its most loyal fans married to the Apple platform. But if a divorce happens, most of us will stay with daddy Apple.

garmonbosia

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2002

0

A little fib

03/24, 02:24pm reply

They will announce AVAILABILITY in the second quarter with the product shipping in the THIRD quarter... mark my words...it's 18 months away...

kuzelnik

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2000

0

loyalty vs. business need

03/24, 02:25pm reply

If a divorce happened, it would be a fatal blow for Apple. Their creative base of ad agencies, graphic and web designers would likely migrate to whatever platform ran the industry-standard applications--Photoshop,Illustrator,InDesign.

Remember, a computer is nothing more than a shiny box without software.

tgray

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2005

0

just before he was fired,

03/24, 03:00pm reply

the head of Avid said something quite simular. Back then they were the industry standard with no real competetors. They felt sure that their customers would take any amount of abuse from them because they had the stranglehold. Now they've had to slash the price of their software, stop favoring M$, and work hard to compete with FCP and Logic.

If Apple came out with a good graphic suite at a good price in let's say 6 months that leveraged Apple's tech the way FCP does, enough people would try it to put the fear of God into Chizon. Their choice would be to start taking care of your base or throw a hissy and go Windows only.

My money would be on Apple surviving that.

garmonbosia

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2002

0

If Xcode can't

03/24, 03:31pm reply

do the "heavy lifting" needed for development on Photoshop, how are the "so far along on its CS3 release"?

Does not make sense...

[Interesting that the one Adobe product with an Apple (universal binary) alternative (Lightroom vs Aperture), is one product from Adobe that is Intel native. I get the picture...]

kw99

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Nov 2001

0

I'm confused

03/24, 04:51pm reply

CS3 as a whole is going to be universal, but Photoshop CS3 isn't?

I agree with kw99. It's amazing how fast they were able to write Lightroom once Apple released Aperture..

I, too, would like to see Apple throw out some competition to Photoshop and even the whole Creative Suite. Adobe bought the last remaining competitor, Macromedia (as Corel doesn't count), so what do they care as to when they release what.

I'm doing just fine on CS1 on my 1.25GHz G4 MDD. There are so few benefits of moving to CS2 that I'll wait until Apple has released a 2nd revision of their upcoming Intel tower, wait until Adobe has fully integrated Macromedia's software into their own and released it as universal binary.

kcmagnus

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: May 2001

0

lack of macromedia...

03/24, 05:39pm reply

look this is the fallout of adobe no longer having any competition from macromedia. I seem to remember macromedia being much quicker to make their apps OSX native during that switch. And surprise the only intel native adobe app is lightroom.. where did that come from? Well macromedia of course. Adobe has no reason to rush to get anything done now with no competition, apple should put out something to compete with photoshop.

inchhigh

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Joined: Nov 2003

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Xcode - one guy's opinio

03/24, 07:17pm reply

As far as his comments on Xcode, all this is is one guy's opinion. My guess is the problem more has to do with trying to keep parity between platforms rather than shortcomings of Xcode. Afterall, as of today, what within Windows compares favorably to Core Image? If you've used both Aperture and Lightroom, I think you'll quickly see what I'm talking about.

boulder1259

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Joined: May 2002

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Sync with MS Vista

03/24, 10:31pm reply

Boulder has it right. They want to sync the release of their Mac products with the release of their Vista versions. My guess is that they're getting some under the table moolah from Microsoft to hold back on their Mac versions. The Universal apps will ship one month after Vista is released.

Apple should buy the old Mac versions of Corel Photo Paint and Corel Draw to poke Adobe in the eye...

cebritt

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Joined: Mar 2000

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