Adobe Systems Inc used the occasion of the launch of Illustrator version 7.0 to brief the industry on its position in the graphics industry. Bryan Lamkin, Adobe’s director of graphics products was candid about Adobe’s late entry into the multimedia authoring market, but laid down the challenge to Macromedia Inc. You will be pleased with what Adobe brings out in the next 24 months, he said, adding, Macromedia is the only game in town at the moment. More people use Illustrator with Macromedia Director than any other imaging product, so there is already a market base there. We can build a better product than Macromedia can. We don’t intend to enter the market to be number two. Lamkin portrayed an upbeat outlook for the company in light of the Apple Computer Inc merger with Next Software Inc. He admitted that it will make the company work harder, but was optimistic about the new Rhapsody platform. Customer demand for the platform will be based on Apple’s ability to execute it. Apple had a well thought through and well implemented strategy for the PowerPC, he commented, and I will expect the same thing from Apple this time around. The San Jose, California-based company said it is not currently writing for the new platform, not because of a wait and see strategy, but because we don’t have anything to write to as yet. Lamkin said the company is enthusiastic about the concept of developing for the new platform, despite it being a major investment. Adobe said 55% of shipments worldwide are into the Macintosh market, and the rest to personal computers, but this is skewed by upgrade sales, with 52% of new shipments going to the personal computer market. Adobe now sees its market focused on two sectors; the graphic artist who is brand loyal and very representative of the Mac platform, and also the graphics producer, who has had no formal graphics training, but is doing graphics tasks.
