Adobe Axes Premiere For Mac, Announces New Windows-Only Product

July 7th, 2003 at 3:00 PM - News by Bryan Chaffin and Brad Smith

Adobe Systems announced yesterday that the new version of Adobe Premiere, itis video-editing tool, will be available for Windows only. In addition, Adobe announced a new audio-editing tool that will also be exclusively for Windows. These announcements come mere weeks after the release of an update to Appleis digital video and audio-editing suite, Final Cut Pro 4.

While Premiere has long been a staple product on the Mac, the aggressive entry of FCP into the market has gradually seen Premiereis sales on the Mac dwindle. Adobe went so far earlier this year as to post an article on its Web site saying that the PC was preferred for its software, based in part on the performance of Premier, which runs faster on Windows than the Mac.

Central to Adobeis comments on dropping Mac support for Premiere was the fact that Apple is competing in this space with its own line of products, that of Final Cut Pro and Final cut Express. Adobe is sounding a theme that many other developers have voiced, which is that competition from Apple makes it difficult for third-party developers to make a living on the Mac. From a CNET News.com article.

"We were rewriting Premiere from scratch, and it would have taken a lot of work to have cross-platform support," Trescot said.

The Mac already has several competing video-editing applications, including Appleis Final Cut family of products, making for a small and crowded market, he said.

"If Appleis already doing an application, it makes the market for a third-party developer that much smaller," Trescot said. "I think youire going to find that more and more--if Appleis in a software market, third-party vendors are going to skip it."

Despite the abandonment of the Mac version of Premiere, both Adobe and Apple continue to say that the two companies have a good business relationship, as they have done whenever it seemed as if there were problems between them. Some analysts, however, believe there may be rough waters ahead if Apple continues itis trend of making more and more software in-house. From the article:

Roger Kay, an analyst for research firm IDC, said Apple faces a tricky balancing act as it expands its role as a software developer. Apple-created applications tend to provide a more consistent user experience that may attract new converts, he said. "Apple, by controlling its own stack from top to bottom, can provide a more integrated experience," Kay said. "Theyire less dependent on other companies to produce their user experience."

More information and analysis can be found in the full article at C|Netis Web site.