WhatMeWorry

Where is Adobe Going vis-à-vis Apple?

The problems started when Chizen, a marketing guy, took over from the founders who were technical guys that understood the graphics/publishing business. Chizen saw macs as a shrinking minority compared to wintels and so focused Adobe's products on Windows versions first and mac versions as later follow ons.

This worked initially, as window users started buying such mainatays as Photoshop and Acrobat (a product that Chizen saw as the future of Adobe). Given the number of Wintels vs Macs the company seemed on a roll.

The problem that Chizen overlooked is that the vast majority of Window users were graphic/publishing amateurs who after buying the first version saw no reason to upgrade (given the high cost of this software), compared to the Mac professional users. As a result the windows sales fell off and because mac software got second class attention and did not keep up with OSX innovation, mac sales lagged.

Jobs understood that he needed professional as well as amateur graphic software so got Apple to do it. He learned from MS Office that you can't rely on on others for compelling software that sells products.