So for the average user, what will Apollo applications look like?
Chizen: It works like a (desktop) app. There's an icon and you click on it to start it like any application. For instance, we have shown an eBay application (built with Apollo). It looks and feels like eBay, the way eBay wants to be expressed. You are not distracted by the browser. You're not limited by the browser, so you have transparency, you have the ability to have the eBay logo come out of the window itself. You have the ability to have the application look the same across platforms, or you can have it look more consistent with the platform, if that's what you choose. You have the ability to do offline activities if you want to prepare for an auction or capture images or use a Webcam.
You can do all of that without even being connected. And yet, when you are connected all of the buying and selling activity takes place through a user interface that is much more pleasing and engaging to the user.
Another example is Amazon. If you want to buy something from Amazon you might have a watch list. Instead of being notified by e-mail, you might have a desktop app that sends you notification when your item is available and you can buy and sell through that application.
Yet another example is a mortgage application. First of all, a lot of people don't want to do that online. The bank needs the requirements of a PDF, but the user wants a much more engaging experience in which to fill out the application. You probably want real-time charting so you know how much you will pay given a certain interest rate. You can do all of that offline with some apps provided by Fidelity (Home Mortgage) or Wells Fargo. I don't think that we at Adobe realise how many things can be created by this new platform. (Apollo) is cross-platform, runs on Mac, Windows and Linux and ultimately on non-PCs, and they only have to create the app once and it leverages the investments they have already made in HTML, PDF and SWF. It renders all three file formats and they can use all or one of them.
It's also a mobile technology?
Chizen: Eventually it will be a mobile technology. Some of it is the limitations of the devices. We want to take Flash Lite and have the ability to display Apollo or a subset of Apollo on mobile devices. First it will be Mac and Windows and then Linux.
How does Adobe monetise this? How do you make money on it?
Chizen: A few ways. First of all we will provide tools. Any Flex or Flash app can be easily turned into an Apollo app. So we get to sell more Flash authoring and more Flex data services, the traditional tools like Photoshop and Illustrator. The second way is that there will be some apps that we will build that will be Apollo apps. For instance, the Digital Editions project we are working on, the e-book reader, that will eventually be built on top of Apollo. We just announced the Video Remix product. Eventually, that will be an Apollo app. Right now, it's a Flex/Flash app.
But there's no reason that can't be Apollo, so you can actually remix those videos offline on your desktop. We've demonstrated something called Philo that is a Flash video player that can do some neat things like content-sensitive advertising. So those are three examples of apps that we can build and you'll see us do that, in the same way that we built Acrobat for PDF and we have LiveCycle for the enterprise around PDF and Reader. We'll take advantage of Apollo.
How far will you use this internally, given that you say Apollo has all of these desktop advantages?
Chizen: Ultimately, you will have hybrid applications. The big challenge with host-based apps is that the capability of the PC still outperforms by a high margin the experience you get through a broadband connection. So if you are using a heavy-duty app like Photoshop today to edit your images, the last thing you want to do is do most of your image editing over the Web, because it would be horrendous. But there are some features, like color collaboration, that you might want to do over the Web as part of your Photoshop experience and there is no reason why over time some of that, or all of that, couldn't be an Apollo app. So you can imagine us using Apollo to adjunct the existing apps, and in some cases, some of the less-intensive apps, like a Photoshop Elements, could then switch completely over to Apollo. So we foresee making money on Apollo in those ways.
The big challenge with host-based apps is that the capability of the PC still outperforms by a high margin the experience you get through a broadband connection.
It also is a great way for us to continue to extend PDF and Flash. For the developer and the content creator, it's evolutionary. For the user, the experience will be revolutionary, which we think is the right formula. You don't want a revolutionary experience for the developer because that's work. In many ways, that's what Microsoft is doing with Windows Presentation Framework and their Expressions tools. Great experience for the user, but it's a lot of work for the content creator. We're saying, hey, use your existing tools and you can give your user a revolutionary experience cross-platform.
What's the time frame for Apollo?
Chizen: For the first developer release, we're targeting June or July. The hope is for some time in March to do something on Adobe Labs and to have the first release in the fall.
The hybrid model -- that's also coming out of Microsoft these days, with their software plus services agenda. Is that where you want to take Adobe in general?
Chizen: In general, but it really varies by product, by solution. And for those computing-intensive solutions, most of the work still has to get done on the desktop -- apps like Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign. It's not a great experience to lay out a magazine remotely. Contributing to a magazine, that could be a host-based experience. So they will all be hybrid, but how much work is done on the host, and how much is done on the desktop will depend on the application. Real-time collaboration and the Acrobat Connect stuff, that's all host-based. So it's really going vary by user, by app.
But you expect that all apps will have some aspect that is hybrid?
Chizen: Over time, yeah. In fact, even on Creative Suite 3, most of the apps will take advantage of the color management stuff we have in Adobe Labs today. Clearly, there are some apps that will need to be so sophisticated and tie so closely to the operating system, you will still want to use C++ and heavy-duty programming.
Let's talk about Creative Suite 3 and Vista: Will CS3 take advantage of some of Vista's new graphics capability or other new aspects?
Chizen: No. One reason was the timing on when Vista would really ship and our own time frame. We didn't really know. Also, another reason is how many customers are really on Vista in the installed base and is it worth the work, especially in the creative customers? And we have no desire to really showcase Microsoft's technology. But we will be compatible with Vista. Whereas, with Mactel, we're really taking advantage of that fully. We had to recompile the apps to be Mactel compatible.
Do you expect Microsoft to really come after your creative customer base?
Chizen: I don't know if they are going after Adobe, but they certainly are going into many of the areas where we already participate. So I don't know if it is a direct attack or a byproduct of what they are doing. We have more reach to the end user, with PDF and Flash, than anyone, including Microsoft. It's greater than anyone else in the world, from a device perspective. I suspect they don't like that. You can ask them.
What I guess they also don't like, if you look at the standard for exchange of documents, other than the standard for creation of documents, which is .doc, is that the standard for sharing documents is PDF. I don't think they really like the fact that PDF is the standard, or that Flash is the standard for animation. And I don't think they like the fact that people use the Adobe solutions for the creation of information other than text and spreadsheets.
If you are Microsoft, you try to displace PDF. XPS is their attempt. You try to come out with tools that leverage their developer community with Expressions. They are big, they have a lot of revenue, they have a lot of resources. They are a monopolist. So I don't trivialise anything that they are doing, but we are moving full speed ahead. We have anticipated that they would come after us. It's taken a lot longer than we ever imagined. With that said, I do worry about them because they have a lot of money and they can go at it forever and ever.
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