Adobe - strange software direction and bad customer support

[Harrison]

Adobe was traditionally a Print based software company. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator have always been the professional software for image editing, illustration and anything 2D image related. They then expanded into video editing with Premiere and After Effects. 2 brilliant packages that still remain good.

I remember back in the 90s everyone wanting a copy of Photoshop, and every other graphics package being directly compared to it,

They however missed the start of the Internet revolution and this is where their main rival Macromedia came in. Initially a Multimedia software developer, with Authorware and Director, they then acquired Flash and developed the webdesign software Dreamweaver, and the serverside Coldfusion solution. In addition they had their own alternative to Illustrator, called Freehand and developed a Vector and Bitmap internet development image editing and animation package called Fireworks. This was all developed into a complete ecosystem where you could work in Dreamweaver and instantly multitask between the other packages to live edit and work on a project. It was heading in a great direction. I used to go to their seminars where they would showcase the latest software and then give you a tutorial on how to use it.

Adobe then bought out Macromedia in 2005 and it has been a downhill decline ever since.

First they ended Freehand as it was a direct competitor to Illustrator. I really like Illustrator but actually prefered Freehand, especially if you were working on vector work for the internet. It was just better. Shame but no unexpected as no point continuing with 2 similar packages.

Next we lost Flash. This was killed off more by Apple than Adobe. Flash did have it's issues, because after Flash 4 it started to get a bit bloated and it was hard work to compile the projects small enough for slower internet connections, but also to maintain compatibility across so many web browsers, OSs and platforms. Apple took a dislike to it with security excuses, but I think it was more that they were not in control of the software and the Flash projects and saw them as programs they were not in control of. So they started to actively block it, and with a big parket for their software being Mac at the time Adobe had no option but to end Flash. A lot of designers were employed as Flash developers at the time so a lot of jobs vanished over night.

And since the demise of Flash we still don't have anything that can really replace it. People go on about HTML5, and yes you can do lots with that, but nothing like Flash. Flash was designed with the graphic designer and animation as the core user, and the programmer as a bonus. Now to achieve anything anywhere near to what you could easily do in Flash you have to be a coder. But they are not always that creative. Flash being timeline based was intuitive from a visual aspect.

We then have Director. This remains my most loved interactive graphic design software. It was brilliant. And it was the cornerstone of Macromedia. It was timeline based, with it's own full programming language called Lingo that was fully formed and you could do anything with it. But the programming language combined with the visual timeline and stage (screen). It made far more sense when you would making a multimedia interactive presentation than anything that has come since. You coupe place code on each frame to activate when than frame was reached, you could attach code to individual elements on the stage (screen) to be triggered when interacted with, and you could create more global classes, functions and variables just like any other programming language. I could probably still build a complex program and project if I wanted as I was a Director graphic designer and developer professionally for nearly 10 years. Director was a main industry software to make Interactive CDs and DVDs, DVD frontends, Kiosk interfaces and anything else interactive and multimedia you can think of.

But for some strange reason Adobe never really knew what to do with Director. It had internet functionality built in with Shockwave, which could compile projects similar to Flash, that would load into a browser using the Shockwave plugin, similar to how Flash worked. It was far more advanced with the ability to add more advanced video and audio, but the resulting presentations were far bigger. But Directors core use was for interactive presentation. Kiosks, business presentations, learning tools etc.

Macromedia also had another similar product called Authorware which was designed specifically for e-Learning and training interactive presentations. It used a drag and drop icon approach similar to node editing in more recent 3D and video post production applications, instead of a proper programming language. Similar to the Apple Mac Hypercard, but more advanced, and the oldest software Macromedia had. It was discontinued before Director.

Director itself continued for a lot longer, with the last major release being version 12 and official support ending in 2017. I hadn't used to professionally since about 2012 so I'm still interested in getting hold of the final release just to have a play. Sad it's long gone now though.

A key package that did continue was Dreamweaver. I used, and still use it for web development. There are lots of alternatives, many free, but I've used it since it came out so just know it, But Adobe have now also stopped development of Dreamweaver and it's in maintenance state now. And Adobe don't have any alternatives to Dreamweaver for web development.

We also lost Fireworks in 2013. This was a specialist web development package, combining vector and bitmap art. It allowed you to prototype a website, then chop up the art into a grid to create web optimised slices and interactive hotspots, and export it into Dreamweaver as a functioning website template.

So in less than 10 years Adobe ended pretty much all the software they aquired from Macromedia. It makes me wonder why they bothered, other than seeing them as a direct competitor and threat to their business. It's almost like they didn't really know what to do with the Internet and interactive side of design.

And Adobe have been ending a lot of their other software that was web design orientated. Most of what is left focuses now on mostly the traditional print and video markets. You also still have Audacity for audio, which is a very good and advanced software package. But I'm not sure why they have seemingly abandoned web development and interactive production. It is the forefront for the design industry these days. Instead they will just be back to being the cornerstone of the software that is used to develop assets for the wider design community.

Well, at the moment. With their very expensive subscription model these days many are looking at alternative solutions. With the free Canva Affinity being a serious direct replacement for Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign and DaVinci Resolve being a free professional solution to replace Premiere and After Effects it doesn't give much justification to carry on subscribing to Creative Cloud. This just leaves Adobe Audacity as one of the best audio production softwares and Lightroom as a quick image organising and processing tool for photographers. But there are good alternatives for those too.

Has Adobe finally reached the end of the road?