A debate has broken out within the comment of one of my recent posts.
How Cool!
In one corner, the normally mild mannered Jeff Headley, one of Adelaide's finests.
In the other corner, a luchador who goes by the name "I'd rather not tell... "
The debate centers around Microsoft's entry into the designer tool space with the Expression family of products.
Here's how it's playing out
Saturday, July 01, 2006 9:24 AM by Jeff Headley
re: Hello FY07, Farewell FY06
"What can I do this year that I've never done before?" asks the restless digital craftsman. "Create stylish, eye-catching designs" seems to be this year's answer with Vista's new graphics and Expression's new tools. And Style is how you attract a new audience. The current programmers will love the many new product upgrades in the next twelve months, but this could be the year the Creative Community has to sit up and take notice that Microsoft, for the first time, is seriously coming to their turf.
Saturday, July 01, 2006 9:08 PM by I'd rather not tell...
re: Hello FY07, Farewell FY06
Jeff,
are you seriously suggesting that the Expression products are in the same league as Adobe's Creative Suite, Production Suite and Web Bundles?
Maybe in 3 or 4 years time, if and when Microsoft realizes that 90% of todays designers are using Macs. I don't expect this figure to change much since the graphics production workflow (especially in print) heavily depends on Adobe's mix of products and Mac integration.
"developers creating stylish, and eye-catching designs"? God help us all...
as Balmer said: "Developer, developers, developers..." ...well designers aint developers! I don't think MS is getting it (just yet).
I think there is a new bread of designer is town... not quite a coder and not quite a communications designer... should we call them Interactive Designers?
On a different note, it's quite sad that MS already had a very promising graphics design package back in '96. I can't remember the name but it really gave Photoshop a run for it's money. Not sure why it was killed but I bet if MS would have stuck with it they would have a serious competitor today...
Sunday, July 02, 2006 1:16 AM by Jeff Headley
re: Hello FY07, Farewell FY06
Programmers are rarely designers, so why should we expect designers to become programmers. But every team I've headed or known for web design has people with different skills, including a code monkey who can bring the design to life and tie it to a database. That team is the target audience for Expressions.
Think Adobe isn't vulnerable? They "got" the desktop publishing wave and established themselves, but Macromedia "got" the Internet wave that Adobe missed (hence they bought them). But Adobe won't come out with a version of their products optimised for Mac Intel chips until this time next year. And they're pinning their Interactive Website hopes on a PC-only application released a few days ago, Flex 2, that requires an experienced Java programmer comfortable with Eclipse.
Perhaps you haven't sensed the disarray in the Adobe camp? They saw how easy it was a few years ago to steal the market from a competitor who had a huge mindshare, Quark XPress. They know the wheel can turn.
Microsoft's potential audience is Interactive Designers who want connecting to data sources to be easy and secure. They als want to leverage what they already know from Dreamweaver and Photoshop and have it all integrate tightly. They don't want one person to play Superman and do it all; they want the skills spread over the team in a way where the job can flow from one member to the next.
And if they discover that Microsoft lets their team work together better than Adobe does they'll listen.
Then when they discover they can integrate Macs and PCs in the same network, tied to the same server, in the same security context, using Adobe and Expression products together in the same workflow, I think they'll do more than listen. I'm doing that now, its working brilliantly, and a number of people are watching over my shoulder with interest.
Sunday, July 02, 2006 12:44 PM by I'd rather not tell...
re: Hello FY07, Farewell FY06
Hi Jeff,
Interesting opinion. A few points though...
1) Adobe made their fortune because they offered a workflow solution which integrated from design right through to print.
2) Macromedia made their fortune because they managed to deliver two key products enableing people to delop for the web (Dreamweaver and Flash). They also managed to engadge the design and development community in a clever way to really drive the adoption of those products.
3) Microsoft made their fortune because they managed to get their Operating system to OEM vendors through an easy to understand licensing scheme plus deliverying an integrated office suite. This provided everything a typical office drone needed in neat package.
It seems to me the strategy behind the Expression products is to provide a set of development tools to create visually rich interfaces for Windows Vista. Other than that I don't see your point about MS Expression products allowing people to do work in a more integrated way than Adobe's CS suite of products. As far as web design, video production and print goes MS has nothing to compete with Adobe (not that I think this is the point or intention anyway).
The main oversight on Microsoft's part in my opinion is that they haven't released a Mac version of their products.
Obviously your work differs quite a bit from what I do. I usually work in teams of up to about 4 freelancers developing web applications. Apps are being build using HTML/XTML/CSS and Flash mixing in PHP, CFM and .Net back-end development with a sprinkle of video etc. . I use Windows XP as well Mac OSX altough I seems I am in the minority in the regards to having Win XP box.
I wouldn't consider anyone I know a Superman but we all do a fair bit of coding as well as design. Most large agencies find this confronting as they like to pigenhole people which I guess allows them to have more people involved in a project and ultimately charge their clients more money.
Don't get me wrong. If XAML takes off and there is a dollar to be made I'll be one of the first people to line up (might have to dig up those VB and C++ books again). However, so far the Flash platform has provided me with a consistent income stream and as far as clients understanding RIAs is concerned it only seems to be the beginning...
Monday, July 03, 2006 1:00 AM by Jeff Headley
re: Hello FY07, Farewell FY06
Dear Rather Not&
I agree with many of your points&
1. Adobe rules the world of print through a series of products using postscript, and Apple has traditionally implement postscript more reliably than Windows. As InDesign vanquished Xpress the two As consolidated a narrow but important creative market. As Production Manager in ad agencies here and overseas I' ve lived this world and use Macs and Adobe' s Creative Suite to this day. But this turf was innovative in the '80s and consolidated in the late '90s with little innovation in the last 5+ years. Traditional print-based designers have been resistant to retasking for the web, which opened the door for&
2. Macromedia to dominate "Web 1.0" where design and interactivity (within the page) mattered, while tying to a database was the afterthought that brought them to buy Allaire (for Cold Fusion). They've tried to accommodate all standards but have stayed within their narrow focus of the creative community except for their bold experiment with Flex. Yet their effectiveness in establishing Dreamweaver & Flash as standards are probably why six of the top eight positions in the new Adobe are Macromedia execs, including the top guy. I've led the local user group for years.
The merger has forced considerable adjustments on everyone in the company and many of their efforts are focussed inward, not unlike what has happened to Microsoft in recent years as they had to reinvent themselves. Sitting at the table, still digesting what you've eaten, is not good timing when your competitors are back on their feet and running after your market.
3. Apple is more a competitor than a partner to Adobe, who've responded by dropping Premiere from the Mac platform and publishing specs showing Photoshop running much faster on PCs than Macs. Look at Apple' s " Pro"target audience categories :
Graphic Design
Interactive/Animation
Music/Audio
Video/Film/Broadcast
Photography
Architecture
System Administrator
Those are pretty much the categories that encompass any "Interactive Designer" (nice phrase, by the way). Apple wants to take over Adobe' s turf, and is happy to offer products in many of these categories that only work on one operating system like Final Cut Pro, Aperture, Logic Pro, Shake and their "iSomething" apps. Some of these are already standards for their market segment. Someone else who also smells blood is&
4. Microsoft who understand that the relationship between the user interface and the underlying data is far more sophisticated, and involves far more security issues, than anything Adobe offers. Yes, Vista will offer significant new graphics capabilities that we will all be tempted to exploit to do things we haven" t been able to do in the past.
Expression tools will allow you to pass things back and forth between Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and their Expression counterparts without any issues, so anything you start on the Adobe side can be continued on the Microsoft side.
And most Mac users haven' t discovered that OS X 10.4 allows them to integrate seamlessly with Windows Server 2003, even at the highest security levels if you add ADmit Mac. There's no reason for Macs and PCs to live in different networks, or to act like they can't work together. This is just one of so many new abilities that break down the barriers between OS X and Windows, and between the apps they both run. You can use each for what they do best.
And despite my love for Adobe apps, there are some things that Expression products clearly do better. There are reviews here on Frank' s site (see "a new family of products" link above) that elaborate. When clients see these new abilities I think they'll want them. So if we want to keep the clients happy we'll need to gain these new skills.
I think the market is much more fluid and competitive than it' s been for years. And these are great products. Perhaps you should try them out "in anger" and see whether you' re going to take them seriously?
Monday, July 03, 2006 4:01 AM by I'd rather not tell...
re: Hello FY07, Farewell FY06
Hi Jeff,
I would agree that competition forces innovation. Personally I am a bit surprised Apple hasn't dropped their own flavor of Office onto the market just yet.
FYI, I have downloaded and played with all three Expression products. I think Web Designer is currently the strongest competition. Will I drop dreamweaver? Probably not yet. Although the CSS features are nice.
Interactive Designer is neat to some extend but I can't get my head around how the backend code will tie in. Perhaps MS needs to publish some small examples.
Graphic Designer doesn't really fit into my workflow. Maybe when you need to author XAML it will make more sense.
While the Expression products are currently "free" I doubt they will remain so or MS might face some further anti trust law suits.
This raises the issue of why buy new software when I already have a fully licensed Adobe Suite which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Flash.
I can't wait for the next installment!!!!